Borderless
by the-lazy-ant164
Summary: What if in the time between their father's death and their first days in the woods Sean and Daniel did encounter Max and Chloe on their journey? Takes place in between two checkpoints of S2E1, no spoilers for anything later, except Daniel's power. Original LiS universe, canon accordance, not affecting Dontnod's S2 series. Compatible with both S1 endings, multiverse theory expanded.
1. Chapter 1

What if, Sean and Daniel _did_ encounter Max and Chloe on their journey? What if, in the tiny window of time between their father's tragic death and the first days alone in the wood, existed an entire adventure of its own? The outcome had already been settled, both brothers would remain unscathed, but what could've possibly happened in between? Not exactly prequel to S2E1, but more like midquel. Whereas the adventure of their lifetime ran its course across the space-time continuum and return the boys back on their track, retaining no memory of the entire ordeal. OU – original universe, canon accordance and not affecting Dontnod's series. Compatible with both S1 endings. Since FF hasn't updated LiS2 and its casts as a subcategory in the fandom section, they are marked as OC. I don't own anything, all rights belong to the developers.

Warning: lots of swearing, F/F (Pricefield)

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Sean walked aimlessly across the forest, his mind wondering miles from where his physical body wondered. Turbulence of thought marked his inability to stop, coupled with unrest born from overthinking and a severe case of introversion. He never let his shield down, so it went understandable that nobody really understood him for the shy, lone wolf underneath. Not even Lyla, his old best friend, who had called him on more than one occasion her little wolf boy in a metaphorical manner with no knowledge whatsoever of how close to the truth she dangerously dangled.

All except Daniel, that was. But even his brother didn't notice at first, until much, much later on their trip. A trip that never got a chance to extend that far before it was brought to an abrupt, unpredictable and horrible end.

At the moment, any stream of thought regarding Daniel in the slightest sense must be banished instantly back to the realm of pain and torment that they evoked so much of, and similarly went the memory that was about to follow were him to continue waddling in muddy ground. Trying to concentrate his focus on practically anything else, he shot his eyes all around his surroundings for the umpteenth time, desperate for any object of interest to capture his attention like they normally would whenever he was in the company of others, robbing him of the precious little moments when he could bond with the little demon reincarnated without consequences.

He didn't even recognized that blurry, reddish and annoying as hell figure inside his memory was Daniel until warm droplets of tears glittered at the corner of his peripheral vision.

Making a scene out of wiping them away, he let loose a sob bubbling up from deep inside his throat, carrying with it many shade of bottled-up emotions, repressed under one way or another. But the floodgate was unleashed, and from there he was no longer in control; another sob, then another, accompanied with fresh hot tears, soon the inevitable reigned its almighty grip over him, and the two-years-younger major broke down weeping on the ground, helpless against such strong current of emotions washing over himself and whatever remained of his composure, drowing the strong, confident and resilient teenager under his own guilt.

He had let down his guard for only a minute.

A minute too long.

A minute was al it took for Daniel to disappear completely, thoroughly, without even a trace. Without any evidence of his existence left behind.

He wasn't even aware that his younger brother was gone, in the first place. Too preoccupied with those half-rotten apple cores he found while rummaging through the trash bins, too involved in trying to secure himself a meal, after days without proper food. He was suffering from malnourishment, his stomach too hungry that it hurt simply from the thought of eating, and the call of man's oldest instinct blinded every other sense of responsibility. And ignore Daniel's call, he did.

_Only just for a split second_, he told himself. _Whatever that annoying brat is up to can wait after he refill his empty stomach_, he had reasoned. And so he kept on eating, despite the urgency in the boy's voice only growing graver and more serious after every unanswered repeat. Of course, realizing how horribly wrong something must've happened with the urgency of his tone, Sean made haste to drop the third apple core he was chewing on and rushed behind the building where Daniel's call emanated from, but it wasn't the familiar image of the 9-year-old boy that he encountered.

It was thin air.

Daniel was simply- _gone_.

He wasn't hiding around or playing tricks on Sean; his voice would never be able to stay level, but would rise and drop and end in a helpless giggle instead. Even without that as his first clue, Daniel's blue plaid jacket discarded in a pile on the ground denied any other possibility; the boy loved it to death, and would never in a lifetime willingly leave as much as a stain on it, save for the fake blood that he, in the childish way that only a 9-year-old could muster, proudly plaster everywhere to pull a more convincing Halloween costume. But denial is a powerful coping technique, and in the moment, he couldn't even contemplate a reality where Daniel didn't throw the jacket on the ground for no apparent reason but to inspire suspension and was hiding in a corner somewhere awaiting his chance to surprise him.

Because believing so would be accepting Daniel's disappearance.

So he searched, and called, and scolded, and even threatened the boy, but in the wake of a whiny voice calling him out for being mean or any other typical Daniel-esque behaviour, all he received in response was silence. He checked the parking lot and looked inside every vehicle, scoured every stack of crates and even popped open the lid of many dumpster, but the boy was nowhere to be found. Rushing back to the front of the diner, already closed and thoroughly vacated half an hour ago when the last employee checked out for the day, Sean found no prying marks on the glass door – the only entrance point into the building. Taking a peak inside, along empty corridors and on unoccupied seats, Sean found no sign of Daniel. The boy was definitely not inside.

"Daniel! Get your ass out here! This is not funny anymore!" He had called, many a time more than once. And begged. And plead he did. But wherever his younger sibling was, he never replied.

Resorting to the last option he had desperately hoped wasn't necessary, he ventured forth into the woods. If Daniel was still there with him the last hour, then he couldn't be far away. He _must_ be nearby. For whatever reason on Earth, he _must_'ve run into the forest, despite being scared shitless of all the imposing tree and dense branches reaching overhead blocking out the sunlight's dying light as the evening drew on – the fear that Daniel had confided to him mere moments ago, though truthful that they were, must've been outweighed by whatever the boy was running away from, or running towards. Either way, Daniel _must_ be deeply concealed between these thick vines and roots reaching to his hip, thus explaining why he left without calling out to Sean even once, or answering his endless monologue.

Because Sean refused to believe in the only other alternative. Because Sean denied having lost his own brother.

So he ran. Recalling all lessons, all training sessions, all laps of sweaty track running he'd ever participated in, he pushed himself to his breaking point. He ran quicker than he thought himself was capable of. Stones, rocks, boulders, or low-reaching tree branches served effectively to slow him down, but with such vigorous effort he pushed forward that everything else blurred into an undistinguishable background, irrelevent, not worthy of his attention. He ran in a circular arc covering as much perimeter as possible, as lengthier than the straight line that Daniel could possibility have made, he was determined to make up for it with his speed, wishing beyond hope that his brother would be his usual waddling self and allow him at least a chance to catch up. He ran on and on, until the sun finally settled between the mountains, until the lack of light limited his field of vision to less than a metre in front of him forced him to stop.

But by no means could Sean rest and call it a day, knowing how his brother had just vanished. He couldn't risk running only to trip over a random rock and injuring himself over a particularly sharp segment of a boulder like how he had acquired the two scars now adorning his left wrist and abdomen, but he could walk carefully, tracking his every steps in the darkness with the feel of a stick. And so he continued to walk, until he thoroughly exhausted himself to the point where his knees would collapse if forced to carry his weight a second longer, where his legs throbbed and ached in a way foreign to the track runner's usual discomfort of doing a quarter of a kilometre in 10 seconds, where his feet prickled with blood from both thorny vines and self-inflicted abuse.

He was juiced. And even then, he wouldn't give up. He screamed, and hollered, and bellowed for all he was worth. But not unlike any previous attempt, any call into the dead of the night only received absolute silence as an answer.

It was then, either from the unbearable pressure of failure, despair and desperation or the excruciating pain of losing the only family member left, or maybe a combination of both, that the crush of reality fully dropped on his shoulders. Daniel was truly gone. And he had no clue, where Daniel was, what happened to him, if he was even still alive or already—

Sean couldn't bring himself to finish that line of thought. It twisted his mental state, filled his mind with unsurmountable dark thoughts, all of them disturbing and haunting, if not eternally then at least for life. He felt his strings snapping each by each, the fragile connection that he was clinging desperately to sanity with finally loosening its hold, and down the bottom of the cliff he was barely hanging onto the abyss of total insanity. The verge of becoming lunatic was only a reach of the hand away from him.

So he forced himself to keep on walking, despite how his bones virtually cracked, deformed or splintered with every step he took, despite the flickering stamina his body could barely muster, forcing himself to stomach all of it if only for the little peace of mind that such a physically tormenting activity could offer. And he forced thoughts into his mind, crammed whatever he could think of into his logic neurons and put them to work, straining himself until he could pass out from exertion, the only alternative to letting the overwhelming guilt drown out entirely his will to survive.

Now, he could comprehend not the reason why he had to try so hard to carry on anymore. If Daniel is truly gone, why bother anyway? He had no dad, no home, no future, and now no family. Why bother to live, if only to suffer? The dream land of Puerto Lobos now seemed so far away, unreal, intangible, like a fantasy realm his dad used to tell him about in every night time story back when he was young. The place every child dreamt of, but could never reach; always within grasp, but never touchable. He may tell himself the lie over and over endless time to fool young, innocent Daniel into believing, but fool himself he could not.

It was with that line of thought that he held his switchblade to his left wrist, above the superficial scratch already there. With just a bit of force, deepening the wound a little, and it would all be done. The pain, the torment, the guilt. The memories of his brother and his father both staring at him with disappointment, with unsaid dissent, with silent blame. Accusing him of failing his duty both as the son and the brother, not deserving of the _Diaz_ family name.

"Sorry, _papa_. Sorry, _enano_. I failed you." Looking at the happy family picture he always kept in his backpack for one last time, he made the cut.

For a moment, the fresh warm blood oozing from his wrist seemed surreal, distant, as if it wasn't him whose blood was being shed, whose life was slipping through his fingers. It wasn't even painful, but rather liberating, a huge relief taking the heavy burden off his shoulders. He finally let loose, dropping his backpack to the ground in a flop, without a second care if it landed on a puddle of mud, enjoying whatever left of his life he could savor until death would come and reap his soul.

That was, until the blood flow trickled down to a slow dripping before it froze entirely mid-air hovering a few inches above the ground, as if held aloft by a mysterious force beyond mankind's comprehension. Before his very eyes, the droplet fell in reverse, drawn by an invisible force upward and against the Earth gravitational pull as if unaffected by the physical realm. Its movement seemed magical, out-of-this-world, as if moving entirely in another dimension of its own.

Taking a second look, Sean realized he wasn't hallucinating. The droplet flew back to his wrist, joined the crimson flow that bled _into_ his open jugular, and before he even knew it, the wound was there no longer, save for the scar that was nothing even close to fatal. A familiar weight registered on his back, the backpack he dropped on the ground just barely a moment ago.

"What the—


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Max Caulfield was sitting on the porch of her beach house, chilling and not really focused on anything. Before her, the sea spanned infinitely across the horizon and out of her peripheral view. It was the perfect picture of serenity, blue cerulean sky with just the perfect touch of white fluffy clouds to relieve the sun's glare by a little, but not enough to cover it entirely. The sun itself was obscured behind some layers of cloud, giving off warmth and an orange-red hue in place of its usual yellow scorching heat. Palms clustered in the distance, gently shrugging the long, cold night away to welcome the new breath of life with every passing current of soft wind. The sand was not really yellow, but more precisely golden, a gradiant that faded into ivory-white the further it went, until disappearing altogether as it yielded superiority over to the navy blue of water. Waves after waves gently licked the border between land and ocean, white foam adorning the edge of each tidal movement. It was pretty, no doubt, perhaps even one of the most spectacular nature sceneries that any typical tropical beach could possibly offer. The colour composition was perfect, the arrangement was exemplary, and the lighting contrast was quintessential; if she framed it right, it could easily become a masterpiece. A simple ticket to grandeur, to greatness, to become the world-class photographer she'd _always_ dreamt of becoming.

_Used to_, she reminded herself. _Used to_.

The impulse was there, under her skin, crawling upward her veins and agonizing her bloodstream, or at least that was how it seemed like. The artist in her was yearning to be unleashed, to capture the moment of pure tranquility before it could escape forever. The itch ran hot across her right hand, up her shoulder, and tickled the skin above her heart, beating in rhythm with the waves. It was almost physically painful, the urge pulling on nerves and not letting go, stubborn to have its demand met, to an extent that her own fingers twitched in response. _Just a shot couldn't hurt_, it had said, but she knew better, remembered better, and had already endured much, much better. But no matter how much she willed it to drop it and just walk away, it wouldn't. Like so many times before. Exact down to the micro-contraction of her neurons, to the twitch of her eyebrow, to the tremble of her lips.

With a sigh, she knew it was pointless to delay the inevitable.

Setting a marker, another fancy terminology to describe the act of kicking a rock away, she committed its image to mind._ Here goes nothing_.

Giving in to the temptation, she picked up the digital camera and took a shot. Just as she expected, even without much effort, it came out marvelous, splendid, gorgeous. _Perfect_.

_Doesn't matter anyway_, she thought to herself. Yet, the pleasure was still there, while the impulse no longer. It would do for now, at least. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the tiny peaceful window of time that always followed after every wonderful shot captured, mentally counting down the seconds as they ran out.

_Three._

A strong draft of wind picked up, and the palms started shaking. Dark clouds tethered at the rim of the horizon, while the waves climbed higher. The bright blue sky was tainted with tendrils of midnight darkness; the sun dimmed in intensity, its orange-red aura reduced to a pink glow.

_Two._

The glow diminished with every passing second, until it was only an imperceptible dot. The palms now shook violently, turf of wind picking up clouds of sand in their raging wake, and the waves grew into miniature tsunamis. Layers of dark clouds interconnected to form a thick blanket, now engulfing half the sky, within it tiny flashes of lightning occasionally flared. Whatever left observable of the blue dome was now pitch-black indistinguishable matter.

_One._

Each one after another, the palms cracked, doubled over at their middle. Sand clouds now twisted into dust typhoons, stretching far up into the air where they spat clumps of hail back to the ground furiously. The waves now rose high enough in the background to give off the impression of a giant wall of water, closing in on land with the intention of devouring everything in its path. Raindrops condensed into streams of muddy water, and lightning struck constantly without a break. But all of that was insignificant collateral damage compared to the truly catastrophic phenomenon still in its early formation, straight from the tip of her finger. _The eye of the storm_.

She couldn't bring herself to look up and face the misdeed of her own creation. _It wouldn't matter, anyway._

Reaching out with her hand, she called upon the flow of her power, coursing through her veins and intermingled in her thoughts. It eagerly responded to her call; the power wrapped itself around the top of her extended fingers, curling underneath her palm and tickling her wrist. It trailed all the way upward along her forearm, through her shoulder and back to the crook of her neck, before morphing into a numb presence at the back of her mind. The command was simple, direct, without any unnecessary emotions or thoughts attached. It was only but what it was; nothing more, nothing less, than the very nature of a call. _Her_ call. Upon whatever mystic forces to whom originated her powers yet unknown, but she couldn't bother to care beyond the immediate knowledge that it was her to command, her to call upon, and her to direct.

And so, in less than an instant later, everything relapsed, the world around her appeared objectively like film reel put in reverse, but Max didn't open her eyes until the end. She briefed across the timeline, feel the unnatural flow of time as it slipped through her fingers and trickled into oblivion, into the realm of unbeing where it didn't have already happened. Her only cue was the time marker, and when a rock made cold impact with the toes on her barefoot, she ceased her call. Reality snapped back to the natural timeline, and everything went on as it already had some minutes ago. Max opened her eyes to the breathtaking sight of the beach, untouched and untainted, still showing off its glorious beauty, oblivious of its fate in a reality came undone.

Max used to feel guilty for deliberately destroy a timeline just for a pretty picture. She was disgusted with herself, with how every snap of her camera could so effortlessly create an entire cataclysm, just like the storm so long ago. Having failed to prevent it despite whatever she'd done, she learnt the bitter lesson that destruction was so, so much simpler than salvation. Right then and there, a snap of her finger, and this whole realm of existence would bear the unholy wrath of the largest, wildest and most devastating hurricane ever known to mankind; meanwhile deleting the photo could no more reverse the damage done than her power could save her one true and only friend. Back then, the dellusion was so simple; Chloe's life for Arcadia Bay, and the storm would never have come, undone by a simple act. She could blame everything to fate, to her friend's disaccordance to her supposed death, to the great sacrifice that it would take to make up for. But never once did she truly question herself, if whether the true cause to it was the multiple shots she'd taken, and the storm that came anyway right after Chloe's funeral was the lesson she could never forget. _Never, ever, to touch a camera again._

The lesson was deep, raw and painful, but revolutionary. She could tear apart a polaroid, but it wouldn't erase her act of already having taken it in an alternate timeline, or the storm that followed. Hence, her adaptation to the high-tech she so despised; for only a digital render of a photograph could truly be _rewound_. Of course, upon realization of the consequences that her thought-to-be harmless passion was capable of, she dropped it instantly, or at least made her best effort to. Ironic though it was, the very person whose command was heeded by the flow of time itself, could doom an entire realm of existence by capturing a moment, by freezing a window of time for what seemed like a harmless pastime. The curse of the time-bender was thought to be ridiculous, surely corrigible, she needed only never to take a photo, and it would never happen again. Yet, the artist in her had already become a sickness, a lust, a temptation past beyond any border of returning, and like a junkie who couldn't repress her addiction, Max fell prey to the pull of the photograph everytime, and as such the digital camera became the only thing that could satiate both. Each time she reached for the camera, her inside was twisted with guilt, but also a relief inexplicable, almost near pure-bliss. But over time, the emotion just numbed, leaving behind the artistic masterpiece that was the sweet reward, and a numb dettachment as its only price. After all, a reality that never happened, or a timeline that was erased from existence, knew no pain and loss.

The only victim of such a horrendous montrosity was the one person who was capable of creating it all along. The irony brought to her lips the phantom afterimage of a grin, but it always felt better off as a lopsided frown. Inside her was this void, born out of guilt and self-torment, and with her unhealthy coping mechanism of just bottling up everything inside, until the negativity ate away at her core to leave behind an empty shell of the wonderful person that was once Max Caulfield. Now she wasn't even certain whether or not she deserved that title, having deliberately destroyed countless continuity for her sick pleasure. The guilt already filling up the void brought a sadistic smirk to her face, and the terrible pain tormenting her conscience was a pleasant relief she didn't know she was seeking, but enjoyed nevertheless.

She knew she had problems, that torturing oneself mentally wasn't an acceptable behaviour, or a sane one at that. But she couldn't muster enough care to rectify it. That was just the way things were now, and she just had to live with it. If anyone was to blame, then it could only be her, for allowing her perfect, spotless life to spiral down into this hellhole. For turning everyone away when they offered kind, understanding hands. For burning down both Arcadia Bay and Chloe on several attempts to photo-jump backward and desperately clutch at straws that had already been broken. For creating this monster that walked around and caused insurmountable mayhem in the cover of Max Caulfield, with every shot of her camera that she did and didn't take.

There, another ting of pleasure. She was incredibly good at guilt-tripping herself, and such could only do too much good to a self-destructive individual who had psychological issues and gained relief from guilt. It bubbled up inside her, until she could no longer held back.

So she cried. And laughed. Despite the indiscernible jumble of emotions, she felt truly at ease, to be herself, to accept the monster that she had become. Max Caulfield had died with Chloe, with Arcadia Bay, and whatever it was that she ultimately chose, this was her only outcome, inevitable, inexorable. This was the monster that her power created, but it was her who fed it, her misdeed which raised it, and her choices that evolved it. It gradually devoured her, and instead of banishing it back to the wasteland where it should've remained, she willingly gave up on herself. She gave it a body to incarnate and made it who it was today.

And above all that, she knew she only had herself to blame.

"Max! Lunch's ready! You coming or what?" From inside the beach house, Chloe's voice called. Sometimes, she wondered if this Chloe was her Chloe, the one that went through everything with her, the one she sincerely wished that she had – or remembered that she had? – grabbed her hands, watched the storm tore away at everything, then together driven away from the remnants of the dead town for good? Or was it just another one produced from a broken timeline, a fresh blank slate having no recollection whatsoever, whom she photojumped and recreated entirely for herself, after she couldn't bear deliberately letting her friend die just for nothing? How she ended up with her was blurry at best, a jumble inside her mind as a result of exerting herself too much, of creating too much branches in the original timeline, of having lived through every one of them, only to come to the inevitable acceptance that any bizzare reality, despite how unwordly and utopian, was doomed beyond salvation the moment she arrived there. Eitherway, she could never truly look into her eyes and admit the truth that no, it wasn't your prolonged existence that doomed Arcadia Bay; it was me and my ability, my unicity, my _curse_, that was the undoing of everything.

"Coming!" Shoving everything aside, she swiped her tears hastily. She was selfish, that much was certain, but as long as Chloe was there, every ruined alternate reality and timeline can kindly go screw themselves. She was beyond a care at this point; playing the heroine was a past so long and distant that sometimes she even wondered if it was real. While her psych was a raging turbulence without rest, the girl always stood at the center of the storm, serving as the final bond that kept her grounded and on the verge of sanity, if barely. While being with her, Max could at the very least _pretend_ that there wasn't a problem with her, and let Chloe's unconditional love fill the void instead of the usual anguish or guilt, for as long as it could last, anyway. She knew she would eventually screw up again, losing Chloe all over, and like every other time, it would hurt _like a bitch_.

_But not now_, she determined, and she also intended to make the fun last for as long as she could. Entering the house, she left the digital camera on the porch, forgotten.

I'm not a native speaker, so any mistakes you can spot, I would greatly appreciate to go back and correct. Currently, I'm working on two works at a time, so updates might not roll as frequently. Please bear with me =)


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Sean blinked.

He couldn't understand the montrosity that had just taken place. Nor could he comprehend how he was still alive, breathing, blinking, and most important of all, wondering how he could still be alive. His wrist was unslit, his skin unbroken, and his blood streaming uninterrupted in the veins that ran under his skin. If he was bleeding to death just a moment ago, then he was very much alive and well now.

The more he thought of it, the more it boggled his mind. In the few seconds, time seemed to run backward, but now it was very much running forward – whatever the right direction of time was called. Though how it happened was beyond him. He wished he had paid more attention in science class, because if there was any slightest mention of a time anomaly that happened when one decided to slit their own wrist, he would very much like to know now, eventhough he was fairly sure such a fictional topic wouldn't be breached during whatever lesson they could've had.

Slitting his wrist, right. The idea totally slipped his mind. In a moment of desperation there, he almost – already had – cut his own wrist. He was actively seeking out death. How desperate was he, for having committed such an act?

Taking a breath, he stilled himself for a moment, to realize that the answer was, no, he wasn't rattled, in shock, or not thinking clearly, or anything similar that a psychiatrist would most likely suggested to a person after a failed suicidal attempt. The thought felt weird; was it really even considered a failed attempt? He did make the cut, and was actually bleeding out. If the time-… rewind? – hadn't occurred, there was no mistaking that he would've died. Really died, with his heart stopped and his breath evened out.

Even now, the thought of dying just failed to evoke any sense of panic, but rather a strange acceptance of his actions. Yes, he had attempted to kill himself, and it was close to succeed. But the real question remained, was he willing to do it again, now that the first go was unsuccessful? Was the urge, the drive, and the motive still there? Was he really so desperate to throw his life away that he would shove life's miracle back into its generous proffered hands and make another slit?

The drive was still there. Daniel was still gone, and so was his dad, eventhough he tried hard not to think of the two of them in the same manner. The truth remained nontheless; none of them were there with him at the moment, leaving him all alone and helpless. Logically, there's no reason why his failed attempt was a message from… higher-up? – to treasure his life more and stop fooling around. On the other hand, he did it out of his own weakness, his own inability to keep his younger brother safe, but now that this mystic… force? – was watching over him, was he really that powerless? What if, he could somehow…

Suddenly rushed by a flow of confidence, he reached out with his hand and tried to replicate what just happened. He pushed all his focus into the feeling he had, into willing such an event to happen again, but his efforts were for naught. After a while, he gave up trying to call upon any hidden mutation; it simply wasn't there. Perhaps it could be summoned by a real threat to his life, but he wasn't in an experimental mood, so he left it at that.

Back to the switchblade resting in his other hand, he held it to his wrist again, then hesitated just when it was a few centimetres hanging above his skin. A few seconds past in total silence, before Sean finally retracted the tool. His life wasn't worth a second attempt, he decided in the end.

And so he pushed forward again, finding Daniel an urgent task in mind, but even bigger than that was the need to find a place suitable to stay the night, if he was to survive whatever danger lurked the night forest and live to see another day.

What he failed to acknowledge, however, was a shadow silently following him from behind the cover of thick, dense flora.

* * *

"So… what've you been up to, naughty girl?" Chloe asked, her brows wiggled in that way she always does whenever a sensitive topic was about to be breached. Max couldn't help but be secretive around her lately. Fucking up time so bad can have that effect on people, speaking from her first-hand experience.

When Chloe patiently waited for her to come around, she burned with a desire so great that her inside melted. She really wanted to just blurt out the fucking truth, for once. "Hey yo, I'm only ruining a few realities for a couple of really cool pics, bet you'd love them. All, and by the way, I don't even remember how I got you, after screwing with time for like, what, the hundreth time? Nah, probably the milionth time. Anyway, let's just enjoy our time together before some fucking storm takes you away for good, heh?"

"Nothing. Um… why you ask?" She said instead.

"Just… curiousity, 's all." Chloe took a bite out of her pancake, and Max thanked the gods for the distraction, as a loud "thump" sound was heard from outside their cozy cabin. Yet, Chloe seemed less interested in finding out whatever the heck it was than learning about Max's great-great-fucking-great time fuckery.

"Nah, nothing much really. Just… you know, enjoying the scenery and all…" Max knew her lie was lame, but between them existed a mutual respect that ran deep and profound enough for Chloe not to immediately call out how blatant and incredulous her bullshit was. Mentally though, she was mulling over whether she should've rewound that line and say something better instead.

"Okay… Hey, is that a tear stain I'm detecting? Max!" Now she definitely had to rewind, because her incompetent excuse of a brain couldn't be smart enough to take the mascara blur into account when she wiped her teary face into the sleeve of her shirt. Reaching out with her hand, she met Chloe's narrowed eyes. "Oh no you don't, like hell am I going to let you rewind away this time!"

Too late. A familiar rush of power through her fingers, a numb tickle in the back of her awareness, and Chloe was in the middle of chewing on her piece of pancake. The "thump" occurred again, and before she could look up to see the stain, Max quickly excused herself from the dining table. "Erhm… think I gotta pee. Don't wait up, okay?"

Luckily, it would seem that the "thump" caught Chloe's attention this time, just enough to provide the distraction for her to slip away unnoticed. "Sure girl, take your sweet time. I'm just gonna check up on whatever the hell that was."

Max opened the faucet and let the rush of warm water calm her wracking nerves. _You can do this Max, yes you can. You've been lying to her up to this point, surely keeping it the charade wouldn't be an issue. _Washing away her ruined makeup, she couldn't help but shiver at how hot the water was. To the hand it was a bit warm, but the skin of her face was so much more sensitive. One of the perks of living in a tropical country, she guessed.

_Wait… tropical country? Where are they, really? _She grabbed a brochure on top of the medicine cabinet, their substitute for proper toilet paper. Flicking through the pages, she realized it was an advertisement tabloid, one that specialized in travelling. A page about some country called "Vietnam", wherever that was, was filled with black marker ink, Chloe's handwriting, she recognized. Written messily aside was a date, a few clumsily drawn hearts, and a smiley face.

It was a week after Arcadia Bay's destruction.

Seeing Chloe's optimism cheered her up a little. The girl lost everything in that storm, and yet she never brooded for more than three days, before moving on. She always seemed so full of brimming energy, like a toll of life could do little to affect her at all. Max wished for even a fraction of that happiness, of blissful ignorance, of irresponsibility. She wished they could just enjoy a life together as two teenage girls happily in love, without all of this time-rewinding shit ruining half of it already.

Huh, was that emotion?

Guess she wasn't so much a monster after all. Or, perhaps she was something even worse, a monster capable of feelings. The creature so selfish that after everything it'd done, it still had the decency to wish for Chloe, for normalcy, for love.

_Well, at least that monster wouldn't look like a total wreak_, she decided, after having washed her face so much with the boiling hot water that the skin of her face blistered at a touch. Satisfied that no trace of mascara, or practically anything other than skin and hair, was visible on her face, she turned off the faucet. Her ears having growned so accustomed to the deafening sound of water rushing down the sink that suddenly everything sinked back into deadly silence, quiet enough for her to hear the sound of a fly flapping its wings a mile from there, if she pushed herself hard enough.

If she thought the silence was going to last for long, she had another surprise coming. From the kitchen, she heard voices. Muttering under their breath, inaudible, indistinct. She strained her ears to listen, but she was never one with a good hearing, and the less-than-average volume they used was no doubt intentionally to keep out nosy eavesdropper. Suddenly there was a muffled scream, but it was quickly muted, and the voices continued whispering.

But between those voices, she didn't hear Chloe's. Those were male voices, low-pitch, grave and rumbling, but not Chloe's. Yet, that muffled yell sound eerily a lot like a woman's, high-pitch, filled with panic, terror and fear. It radiated with a certain sense of caution, as if someone out there was alarming her to be careful. And most important of all, it sounded a lot like Chloe's.

That was all the trigger she needed to throw all caution to the wind. Or, more precisely, to the power that resided between her fingers.

Kicking open the bathroom door, she almost jumped out of the room into the narrow hallway from which the entire dining area was visible, and possibly within gunshot's range. So instead, it was with her hand held high, her mind highly focused, and her senses acute that she stepped out of the safety cover of the bathroom; the power within her dancing on the tip of her finger, ready to be accessed with but a whim and without hesitance, primed to stop and rewind even the fastest of bullets, as time itself was her to command.

Just as she expected, her direct eyeline was met with a certain blue-haired punk being tied up in one of the dining chairs, duct tape firmly secured to her mouth, and above her two large, bulky body of muscular masculinity stood, one of them brandishing a weapon of choice. Upon seeing Chloe incarcerated her eyes saw only red, but it was the metallic shine of the weapon that stopped her from pulling a "groundhog day" and putting them all down that instance.

Instead of the typical guns she was expecting of goons, or even wooden bats some occasional thugs would prefer, or even cutlery knives for that matter, she saw a _sword_. Like, an actual _sword_. Those that medieval knights in shining armours used to yield. Only a bit more futuristic, with the hilt metallic and blocky, while the blade elongated unnaturally and with a soft curve near its end. And to top it all, it was dripping with a crimson, thick liquid that one could only be associated with the same thing coursing through their veins.

It was _blood. _Actual _blood_. Real, fucking _blood_.

Quickly dashing her eyes aside, she eyed Chloe up and down, but the girl seemed relatively unharmed, if anything a bit shaken, and there seemed to be no puncture wound bleeding out. Good. God knew what would happen to these petty bandits if they were to lay a finger on her beloved, precious Chloe.

"You…" The taller one said, catching her attention. She could rewind right then, but these… _sword-wielding_ bandits were just too interesting for her to pass up the opportunity, considering there was no immediate danger anyway. The muscular impression earlier was just the contrast of their bulky armour – wait the fuck up, armour? – against the accursed blinding light of the mid-day sun outside, while her eyes still haven't fully adjusted from the dark bathroom. It wouldn't be that different from an elaborate Halloween costume, if she hadn't spotted the stain of red blood spanning the chestpiece of the armour, matching colour with its counterpart on the sword exactly. "What witchcraft have you casted upon us this time? What in the nine realm of hell is this place? And enough with your act, your precious second-in-command here had already rehearsed it so perfectly, we were almost convinced that she really had no idea what we were talking about." He even put the instrument by Chloe's neck for extra measure, almost eliciting a chuckle from Max if she didn't realize the seriousness in his tone.

_Oh god._

He was actually fucking_ serious._

"Hey, you take that thing off her neck-

"Step no further, or your face would be the last thing she sees." The shorter figure spoke, and as if to give a visual demonstration, the larger man tilted his blade in a direction that put the sharp end even uncomfortably closer to Chloe's throat. Almost simultaneously, she felt a force on her forefront, as if she was pushing her face against a solid brick wall, and try as she might she could not budge an inch further any more than she could become intangible and walk through said wall.

"Cease your futile attempt; you know you cannot surpass my force field, not unless with that magical witchcraft of yours." The short figure spoke again, and this time she could not stop herself from darting her eyes over him. He was short, undoubtedly so, but she had no idea he was _that_ short; barely higher than the other man's waist in full height. He was cladded with the same armour as the other man, though the size different was palpable, and there was no bloodstain on it either. The voice that came from the helmet sound surprisingly young, and if she hadn't known better she could almost swear she heard a crack of fear carefully concealed between forced roughness. He wasn't armed with any sort of weapon whatsoever, and she doubted he could wield the full weight of the weapon that was three-forth his size already. His right hand was outstretched nevertheless, his fingers half curled in a manner almost identical to her raised hand whenever she called upon her power.

_Power?_

All of a sudden, it made sense. It made a lot of fucking sense, really. No other explanation could be responsible for the invisible force holding her back, the outstretched hand, the curled fingers, and his actual fucking words itself. _Force field? _Like, really, what was her first clue?

"Hey there, easy now, you might wanna tear that tape off and hear what we have to say for ourselves, because we seemed to have a bit of a misunderstanding here." Realizing how futile it was to keep pushing onward, she resorted to talking instead. She really wasn't under that much stress either, with the knowledge that she could rewind whenever something went wrong, and apparently realizing this, Chloe nodded emphatically.

"Like hell am I going to believe your lies and deception again, witch. You will face your judgement in time, but right now, your second will face her judgement, after all the sins she had committed to our people. Now, Sean!" The tiny man shouted, almost hysteric, his fingers curled a little tighter, and suddenly the invisible pressure was on her neck. Blackness felt her vision, and for the tiny fraction of a second that it took for her to clear the stars swimming around in her head, something terrible happened. She was being strangled, her breath cut off entirely, and her feet hovering mid-air as the power held her a good metre above the ground; that much was clear. But when her vision returned, she watched helplessly as the taller man closed the tiny distance and placed his sword on Chloe's neck.

There it was, the final straw to break the camel's back, and all the fooling around simply stopped being worth it. The power, in rhythm with her own frantic call, bursted forth inside her mind; she grasped at it with every fibre of her existence that hadn't passed out from the lack of oxygen yet, and with a familiar sensation more welcomed than ever before, she commanded time to carry her back all the way, to prevent this montrosity from ever happening.

Max looked up from her plate of pancakes, seeing Chloe munching on her own unfinished one. There it was, the "thump" on their porch, accurate down to the nanosecond she remembered it.

And this time, there would be no bathroom break, no heartfelt confession, no fooling around.

This time, she would be ready.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

A cold gush of air swept across his face, and without a conscious thought Sean's fingers pull on the strings of his hoodie just to tighten it a tad bit more securely, whatever that was worth. The fire flickered dangerously close to the brink of extinguishment, the light it emitted dissipated for a second when everything submerged into darkness again, before a miracle brought it back to life, albeit barely. Adding a log into the dying flame, Sean couldn't help the sigh that escaped his charred lips, despite how many times he'd reprimanded himself for such a show of weakness.

The night drew on, without a second care for those less than fortunate to be without a roof above their heads, but such was a luxury his fugitive life couldn't afford. The cave he'd opted for was a far cry from proper shelter, as was evidence from the wind slapping at his frozen cheeks, and if he focused he could even make out the stampede of hundreds of tiny legs crawling in the moss-covered wall behind his back. He had no other option though; the unnatural disaster struck so sudden and hard that he barely had any time to gather woods, the last stack quickly shrinking beside him would surely not last the night, and he shuddered at the thought. If the frostbite and dampness was bad enough, wild hungry beasts were another problem entirely, and sharp yellow eyes silently observing him from the darkness of night offered little calm to that line of thought. On top of the list, he was too tired and weak to really fend himself off against a mole at that point, and his only line of defense would soon reach its expiry, with how relentlessly the wind kept raging on.

Praying to whatever higher power that was, he hoped for a miracle to get him through that long, sleepless night. Exhaustion ate deep in his bone, but his eyes fluttered awake with every dim of the fire light; he couldn't afford to lose his only source of warmth, especially when hypothermia seemed only an inch away from devouring him whole. His stomach growled audibly, another complaint for its underfed state. Oh, how he longed for a bite of practically about anything edible at that point. Heck, if he was being honest with himself, the thought of self-cannibalism even crossed his mind when his eyes lingered on his skinny, long arm for a moment too long. He was tempted to take a bite, and the pain that sparked subsequently was the only thing that stood between him and becoming an amputee. At least he would have a fresh mark of teeths as a friendly reminder to never, _ever_ even try something as stupid as that again.

His legs began shivering. _Great, just great, _he thought to himself. The first symptoms of hypothermia was finally there; how long did he still have? Pulling his legs up and gathering them around his arms, he rested his head on his knees. Even a coiled ball could not keep his body temperature from slipping away much at that point, but he was desperate. He'd already sat close enough to the firepit that his toes occasionally tingled with pain from the flame's lick. Yet, those miniature burns were the reason he hadn't passed out, and most probably away, from frostbite until then. The pain grew numb and more into an annoyance over time, rather than actual pain, and by this point he couldn't even feel the skin of his feet anymore. _Guess that's one of the perks of having the cold paralyzing his nerves_, he snorted in bitter irony.

Sitting alone in front of a flickering fire drove him to the verge of insanity a few minutes ago, so he had to make some simple sketches on his notebook, provided his brain with something else to focus on apart from the stomach-gouging hunger, until his exposed fingers shivered violently enough that holding a pencil became an impossible feat. Now it still did, but not as much out of boredom than from the despair it evoked. There was something calm about staring at a burning fire and doing absolutely nothing else; it brought a certain sense of nolstagia along with many desirable memories in mind. He remembered the giant fireplace back in Seattle, and how his family would gather around it, talking, laughing and basking in the presence of each other every Christmas. He remembered delicious roasted marshmallows he oh-so-wastefully burned and threw away on one of their camping nights, and how he would literally kill just for a pinch of that bitter, tasteless black crust. He remembered the burning sun on summer days that would scorch his skin and leave it blistering for weeks, the precious heat that his shock-entering body would really much appreciate just a fraction of right now. And in all these memories, he remembered his _papa_'s smile, the one thing that made him feel like an unruly child all over again despite having done nothing wrong, the thing that radiated with just so much protectiveness and warmth that he could snuggle by his side and pretended that he never have to grow up, to take up responsibility someday.

But the desire that burned most fierce, wild and untamable was not one that lingered in the past, a figment of his memory, or a fantasy never to be true. It was something just as real and tangible as the hair on his head, the dying flame before him, and the frost that creeped along his spines. It tainted his mind, blurred his savage hunger into a pale acknowledgement of his malnutrition, and pushed the sleepy exhaustion of drowsiness that the coldness had brought, replacing his despair with a renewed vigor, a fresh surge of life tingling with electric as it was carried across his veins and into his pumping heart. It opened his eyes just in time to feed the crackling fire another log before it went out for good; it heightened his senses enough to distinguish the hissing of a certain venoumous reptilian creature attempting to sneak up behind him, with every malicious intent of turning him into its storm night's prey, a willing midnight snack.

Faster than his usual, sluggish reflexes could account for, his hand grabbed a half-burnt branch from the firepit and swung at the animal at the last moment, just a second before its fatal leap registered in the cornea of his optical vision. It made sizzling impact with the snake's body as the hot end blistered scaled skin, and the creature quickly crawled away back into the safety of its own shelter, having learnt its lesson; its target forgotten in favour of self-preservation. Sean dropped the branch back into the fire before the pump of adrenaline ran out entirely, only releasing a hiss of air from his burnt fingers a second after the immediate danger had past. It was incredible; his numb mind still hadn't truly processed what had happened, and yet he successfully fended off a wild predator whose approach he wasn't even aware of.

Once again, the desire saved him. And for that, he didn't know whether to be thankful or remorseful; because the same desire was born from the loss of his younger brother, the one person he wished above all else to reconcile with.

It was the desire of the older brother, of the alpha wolf of their small little broken pack, of the parental instinct he didn't know he had inside him until their Dad was gone, until Daniel looked up at him with that helpless, sad eyes, questioning what they were doing and what would they do next, seeking for guidance and protection. It forced every fibre of his being to put the boy before himself, to do everything in his ability to make sure Daniel was sated, fed, and safe, and to keep him that way, despite whatever it takes.

Everytime he blinked, the image of Daniel – innocent, angelic Daniel – would run circles around him, annoying him, aggravating him. Acting the tiny little brat that he was.

How desperately did Sean wish to be pampered with pranks from that brat again. To take a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, to have an egg catapulted into his forehead and making a mess of his face, to have ketchup spilt all over his fancy suit. To have his every conversation with Lyla interrupted as the boy seemingly took personal pleasure out of invading his private space.

A drop of tear escaped the corner of his eye and rolled across his frozen cheek, now already thawed and burning hot with the weight of his emotions. He missed Daniel. He missed him so horribly much that his heart ached. The soft growl of his stomach was nothing but a tender touch compared to this raw, festering wound that tore him open from the inside out, trampling his organs and ripping apart his skin. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't help it. After all their ridiculous sibling rivalry, it was moments like these that reminded him how much he loved his younger brother, how deep his adoration ran, and how much he would give just to have his brother by his side again.

_His life?_ Beyond a doubt. _The entire world?_ Not even worth consideration. _Even their old, happy life with their beloved father and an actual home?_

He shuddered again, but this time not so much from the cold than from the brutal honesty of his answer. _Yes, in a heartbeat_. _Yes, for the millionth time. Yes, the answer was nothing other than yes, fucking yes, and nothing-other-than-yes yes._ _A hundred doomed Arcadia Bays yes,_ whatever that random thought even meant.

His tears dropped one after another, until it grew into a stream, and he'd be damned if he actually _gave a shit_. Hefting the final piece of log into the fire, he laid back, face pressed into the palm of his hands, and his back to the rest of the world. Quiet snobs occassionally broke the night's deadly silence, and soon enough Sean found himself drifting into a fitful, restless dream. When sleep finally overtook all his senses, the wind died down, and the fire stabilized from burning its recently replenished fuel without any interruption. Yellow prowling eyes observed with disdain from the distance before finally giving up on the human and his mysterious light, speeding away in search for another unfortunate prey to satiate their predator's instinct.

But the tiny piece of log couldn't sustain the fire through the rest of that long, chilling night, and when Sean was snoring away blissfully ignorant of the dying flame, it was another hand that fed the fire and kept him warm.

* * *

Max pressed her back to the wall, her other hand firmly pressed over Chloe's mouth, effectively blocking any sound that might alert the intruders' of their location. In her hand, the lock-and-loaded 0.35'' pistol they always kept carefully hidden under the matress of their bed for such an occasion like these. It was funny how she couldn't, for the love of life – most literally – figured out how she had acquired this Chloe, and yet remembered down to the tiniest details about another random and totally insignificant memory. Like for instance this one conversation they had some weeks ago, when she bitched on and on about how insecured she felt to be sleeping on a loaded handgun, and Chloe doing everything she could to convince Max not to throw away her favourite toy. Thanking god for how stubborn Chloe was, Max really couldn't imagine what they would do now if Chloe had lost the argument that day.

Footsteps echoed from the dining area, and her blue-haired punk who always had better hearing than her seemed to understand everything finally, if her ceased struggling against Max's side was of any indication. She had grown so understanding, so adaptative, and so flexible to whatever situations they were facing at the moment, but Max surmissed that was something you just get accustomed to living with a time-travelling-capable girlfriend and fighting off crimes for a living.

_Wait, what? They're heroes-for-hire now?_ Her subconscious seemed to have just unearthed another specific piece of useless memory in the face of crisis. _Interesting. _Perhaps stress triggers her memory? Stashing the idea in a corner of her mind, she forced herself to focus on the situation at hand. Just in time, apparently, because the footsteps sounded closer to them than ever. The bandits were probably just a few metres from her hiding spot, and this would be the perfect opportunity if she wanted to land the shot.

Springing out from cover like a coiled cobra, Max pulled the trigger, but the bullet bounced off their armor harmlessly to ricochet back at _her_. _There goes another rewind-free achievement_, she thought to her RPG persona before turning back a few seconds.

Max peaked from behind the wall to observe her target more carefully this time. The smaller one was completely hopeless; the armor covered his undersized body whole, leaving no vulnerable spot left for her gun to work its magic. The taller man, though, had a tiny gap of exposed skin between the joint of his shoulder and chestpiece. If she could just aim it right-

A flying sword stopped an inch short of making shish-kebab out of her forehead; in her idiocy she had forgotten all about subtlety, and apparently they both spotted her from her not-so-stealthy hiding spot, if the weapon hanging mid-air was of any indication. Poor Chloe; the girl's expression was one of pure horror, which wasn't that hard to comprehend if the person who pushed you into hiding just stepped out into the open instead. _Stupid, Max. You're slipping. Come on, third time's the charm. Let's get this right this time before you can give Chloe another heart attack, god bless the girl's poor soul._

The steps echoed from far away this time, giving her the time to calm herself and concentrate on her aim. Beside her, Chloe was holding her breath, assumably tense of the events about to transpire before her very own eyes for the first time, at least in her perspective anyway. She wondered if Chloe somehow managed to piece together that this wasn't Max's first attempt, with how calm she appeared to be?

Thud.

Thud.

Thud_._

The footsteps got louder and louder. _Not yet, Max. Patient. Just a bit closer…_

Thud.

Thud.

_Just a bit longer, Max. Gotta get it straight this time. Just a bit more…_

Thud_._

_Now!_

She stepped out from her cover, took a stance, raised her pistol, braced herself for the throwback, and shot.

As expected, the bullet missed her target. But the timing was perfect, and that was all that mattered to a time-traveler. So she rewound, and shot, and missed, and rewound all over again. It took her five attempts, but she finally got it. The bullet hit right in the crevice between two armor pieces and impaled soft skin underneath, taking both men off their guards. The unfortunate victim let out a curse almost simultaneously and dropped the sword he was poising to hold onto the wound with his other arm, so she wasted no time to grab it. Of course, she just _had_ to trip and fall on her face when she rushed for it, allowing them just the window of time to make their retaliation. _Rewind we go then._

Max jumped across the dining table and grabbed the sword, successfully this time. What she didn't expect, however, was the other man's outraged battle cry being the last thing she heard, before an immensely powerful force grabbed hold of each molecule of her body and started ripping it apart in all direction.

For a second, she was being _disintegrated_, and though it usually wouldn't last long enough for an average person's nerve system to register the pain, time had little definition to the time-traveler. In fact, the pain was so horrible that for a moment there, she actually fucking _regretted_ her existence; as ridiculous as that cliché line always sounded on movies. Even after the rewind had already kicked in autonomously like every other time she had faced death, the pain still didn't go away for a good second later, which was long enough for her to learn her lessons. _One, _never to piss off this petite man anymore, and by that she also meant never getting on his bad side, no matter what. _Two_, this bigger man was apparently very important to him, so to avoid disintegration, please refrain from hurting this larger man as well. And _three_, never underestimate this smaller man and his power, because with a right push, he might be the end of her, time-rewinding ability or not.

When the blinding torment was over, Max was standing next to Chloe behind their safe cover, with the sword in her left arm and pistol in her right. _Thank god_ for whatever mechanics her power seemed to work on, because if it had rewound her already retrieving the weapon and forced her to go through another _disintegration_ again, she swore she would fucking chop off her hand.

"What the…" The man's voice from behind the wall told her he had noticed his sword vanishing from his hand, and was still in the process of trying to comprehend how the heck that had just happened. In other words, it was the confusion she needed to make them start talking.

She stepped out from behind the wall for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, the sword raised high in one arm and the gun cocked in another, pointing in the general direction between the two men, but mostly for show. "Your sword is here, so stop questioning yourself. I know you wanted to kill me and Chloe, and you were driven by a force too great that you couldn't put your ears to work hearing us out first, so I had to strip it, but just as a measure of self-preservation. I do not intend to pose any hostility towards you, but your sword will be in my possession for now, at least until you hear us out. But you can also consider it a display of my ability and what I'm capable of, so don't mess with me first before I'm forced to retaliate." She snapped into full badass mode, voice level and gruff, but mostly to conceal the shakiness that multiple rewinds had already taken their toll on her physiques.

In an instance, the weapon was pried from her hands by that same invisible force and returned to its rightful owner. "You don't threaten us, _witch_." The smaller one snapped, his voice dripping with venom and malice, like a hatred that ran lifetime-deep. She wondered what she could've possibly done – or in this case, not done – for them to despise her so much. _Rewind then._

"… forced to retaliate." The weapon was still in her hand, but not for long if she didn't do something soon. Darting her eyes at the smaller figure, she leveled the sword at him, giving old-fashioned intimidation a shot. "I know you are thinking of stripping this sword from my hand. Don't even think of it."

Despite her words, the sword still flew away. "So? Here I am, doing it. What're you gonna do, _witch_?" _Rewind, again._

"… think of it." Taking a breath to choose her words carefully, she hissed. "Pry this sword off my hands, and I'll take it as a sign of hostility. I _will_ attack, don't you doubt it for a second, and I promise you, there _will_ be dire consequences."

"Hah, I would love to see you try, _wi-_

"Witch." She finished his sentence off for him, too accustomed to the repeating dialogue by this point. _Rewind, urgh, again._

"… consequences." She raised the pistol and aim it at the taller man's helmet instead. "This here on my hand is the most powerful magical craft of the South-East Asian regional, and with but a pull of my finger, his head would be nothing but dust." She had no idea what she was bluffing about, but she was beyond a care by then. "So go ahead, take the sword, I dare you, I fucking challenge you. On second thought, you know what?" She threw it onto the dining table, the force of her swing enough to make it slid across the table friction-less. "I'll even leave it there for you to grab it easier. Go ahead, grab it. Because I'm fucking _itching_ for a reason to blow his head to kingdom come, and I'm tired of this bullshit. Grab it! Grab the fucking thing!" She practically yelled in the end, but the frustration in her voice wasn't as much an act this time as it was sincere. She was honestly so tired that if they showed even one sign of hostility this time, she would probably just rewind one last time, put a bullet in the unarmored back of their necks, and just fucking leave it at that. The empty monster could take control and deal with the rest; she was too fucking tired for this shit.

Rather than instantly picking it up, the two men were reluctant this time. A silent standstill stretched on for what seemed like forever, the tension between them thick enough to be sliced open with a dull butter knife, before the shorter man finally, _finally, really fucking finally _listened. "Um… Sean? I think we should, um… hear her out first, huh?" The smaller man spoke, and for the first time hearing his true voice without the forced gruff, she realized that he wasn't just an undersized man, but an actual underaged child as fucking well.

"I will never trust you in a millenium, _witch_, but for the sake of Daniel, I might just give whatever deception you're been brewing this time a chance. So speak your peace, and fast, before I change my mind." The other grouched out, still wary and skeptical.

She couldn't believe it. She finally did it.

She finally got them to fucking _listen_.

Ecstacy filled her inside, followed by insurmountable pride after having accomplished the impossible deed. Never would she have truly expected it, but all the do-overs actually paid off, and she succeeded in reaching a compromise without any blood shed. Or at least it would seem that way at first, because she didn't take her own blood into account. A certain dizziness assaulted all her senses at once, the kind of dizziness that only came after a great, _great_ power exertion, which she realized with a startling yelp was exactly what she just did. The familiar warm, crimson liquid registered on her philtrum, and soon enough blackness swam at the edge of her vision.

"Max?" She heard Chloe's voice, concerned, worried, rushing over to her side. But before she could gather enough remaining strength to formulate a coherent answer, unconsciousness had already swallowed her whole. The bone-deep exhaustion took away any ounce of serious determination to resist it, and instead Max welcomed its soothing embrace.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Sean awoke to the beautiful sound of grizzling bacon.

For a moment, he was back inside his bedroom in Seattle, curled up on his comfortable bed and kept warm under layers of thick sheet. The sun shone its soft ray through the transparency of his glass window and filled the room with a surreal golden hue, breathing fresh life into anything within its reach. But most important of all, his Dad was well, alive, and just a door away. He only needed to open his door, walk out, and sit on the dining table.

So he did the exact same thing. He walked to the door, grabbed the knob, and turned it in his hand.

But to his dismay, it wouldn't budge, not even an inch. He heard his father's familiar call to invite them to early breakfast, and Daniel's door being slammed as the young boy eagerly made his way to devour everything before Sean had a chance to.

_Daniel._

It was almost as if the mentioning of the boy himself motivated him harder, if that was even possible. His movement became rushed, frantic, and in his panic he slammed his entire body into the wooden obstacle that just wouldn't_ move_.

"Sean! You coming?" He heard his dad called, again. Oh, how he'd missed that voice so, so much that just the sound of it physically hurt. He opened his mouth to get out a firm reply, to ask for help, to get his father to break down this stupid jammed door and let him out, to wait for him just a bit longer.

Instead, his mouth acted on its own accord. "Urgh! Dad! It's Sunday! Give me a break!"

No! What was he saying? What the _fuck_ was he saying? Was he even thinking?

"Okay, suit yourself. Come on Daniel, no need to wait for your brother, so finish up quick, then we'll go to the park, okay?" No, not the park. Anything but the park. Everytime they went to the park, they would somehow find a whole new load of reasons to spend the entire day there. He used to take relief from it. The desire of every teenager, to have nobody else home but themselves; no one to call them out on whatever stupidity they were pulling, no one to pamper them down to the smallest detail, and no one to protectively watch over them or ruining their fun.

What he wouldn't give for just the tiniest share of that now.

His stomach grumbled, and the hunger grew nauseous. He had to hold up from literally throwing up, trying – and failing – to keep whatever unprocessed nutrition back inside his empty belly, though he had a stinging suspicion there was nothing apart from acid inside him by that time. It burned, oh god it burned, and it burned so bad that he couldn't keep his knees upright.

So he collapsed into a bundle before the door to his bedroom, and the pain kept raging on, taking his body in short burst of convulsion, where he dry-gagged and sad nothing came out instead of the green gooey substance that would at least tell him there was acid in his stomach, rather than complete, total and absolute _nothing_. His ears registered the clinking of silver cutlery and plates, then a short rush of water as someone turned on the faucet.

"Dad, I'm done. Let's go!" He heard Daniel, excitedly calling. Inside his mind he could almost picture him jumping up and down as he said those exact words.

"Okay, okay, we're going. Easy now, you don't wanna wake that sleepy head in there." He heard his dad refering to him, his voice ever so loud and clear as he was just walking past his door after coming out of the bathroom.

Now was his chance.

He sprung to his legs and to the door, knocking on it with his fists, then smashing with his entire arm, desperate to let out a noise – any noise, to aware his leaving dad to the his distress. But just like how his mouth had failed him before, the wooden surface absorbed every impact, and he could create not a single a sound no matter how hard he punched on the door.

Jingling of a metallic keychain reached his ears, followed by a gentle close of a door. Their front door.

They were gone.

Immediately, the pain welled up inside him again, bringing him down to his knees. But it hurt barely a fraction of the pain that was caused by hunger, despair, and abandonment.

In that tiny moment before he woke up, he understood what it was like to lose all hope.

* * *

Sean bolted from his makeshift bed a second before his eyes could snap open. Already the nightmare was fading, and he was glad. Eventhough he couldn't remember what it was, the pain it brought was just as raw and realistic as the fish grilled over the open fire in front of him.

_Oh, not this early in the morning_, he thought to himself as he rubbed his eyes. The hallucination from last night's frost bite was his first guess, and the loss of his sanity became the second. Though he didn't expect it to still _be_ there after he'd rubbed his eyes, sat upright, and even blinked.

It was there, skewered on a stick that was embedded firmly in the dirt just next to the firepit. It was the perfect shade of brown, of a meal well-done, and it even smelt a wonderfully lot like usual barbecued meat would. In fact, it was so real that he could almost imagine himself grabbing it out of his imagination, or hallucination, whatever it was that was causing him to see stuffs, and just bite into that glorious burnt flesh. And swallowing it, and filling up his empty stomach that had already suffered for so long.

He couldn't help it anymore. Sean grabbed it, expecting nothing more than thin air, but his hand didn't quite listen to his command. And when its fingers firmly clutched on the stick, he still didn't believe it was real, until he had taken his first bite.

It was heaven. It was pure, unfiltered ecstacy. It was something too good to be true.

Sean half-expected to just sit up and open his eyes, his _real_ eyes at that point, and put whatever cruel dream that was back into its rightful place in the land of the impossible. But until then, reality could kindly go screw itself while he enjoyed this wonderful dream for as long as it could last.

It was sometime after he'd eaten the entire thing cleanly and had accidentally prickled his fingers with a left-over fishbone bigger than the size which his throat would allow for whole-swallowing that he truly accepted reality as it was. That for some freakish cause, a fish magically appeared during his sleep, and he was granted with such an amazing gift for no apparent reason. And the tiniest bit of fullness inside his belly then wasn't an entirely made-up illusion of his senses playing tricks on him, but actual food. Actual _fucking_ food.

The fish was barely enough to satiate his burning hunger, but it dulled the ache enough into a blurry register in the back of his mind that allowed him to concentrate on something else. And, without a doubt, his next target was to look for more food.

So a minute later saw him walking out of the cave in search for more edible harvestable to fill up his stomach with, thanking whatever powers that be for granting him just the bit of energy needed to prolong his sorry existence. Last night's storm had already dissipated without a trace, and if it hadn't been for uprooted trees and fractured trunks all around the place, he dared say it was just a figment of his imagination even. The sun was shining bright, clear and high up in the blue sky, with only the slightest turf of white fluffy clouds here and there, and green patches of overgrown wild grass underneath his feet was dry. It seemed most likely not to strike again anytime soon, so he ventured forth on his gathering quest, oblivious of the person leaning casually against the cave he'd just departed from, eyes trailing on his shrinking form like a watchful hawk.

"Sean Eduardo Diaz, you are just one nasty surprise time and time again, are you not?"

* * *

Max came around to the smell of Joyce's infamous belgian waffle, arousing all her senses from the brink of drowsiness. Blinking open her eyes, the world came back into focus-

-to reveal a scene that was way, _way_ beyond what she could've possibly expected.

Chloe, yes, _that_ Chloe, was sitting, laughing, having an actual conversation, with the two men in armor. The pistol and the sword lay untouched on the kitchen counter, after all the trouble she'd gone through trying to accomplish just that, the mere sight of such literally sent anger rippling along her spine in waves. They both had their helmets off at the moment, but sitting turned in a direction that exposed only black, unruly hair to her viewpoint. If the creepiness could be cranked to a level higher, then the smaller one was savoring a plate of waffle, one she had no doubt was the making of Chloe. And of course there they were, happily chatting away and having lunch while she passed out trying to save all of their asses. Fuck the world and its unfairness; the next time somebody tries to kill someone else don't they even _dare_ to run to her begging for a rewind, because not in a millenium and some later would she ever rewind her ass off for these ungrateful bastards anymore.

Chloe didn't even realize that she was awake, so deeply caught in the middle of their conversation. Forcing her anger back to the hole where it came from, Max mustered every ounce of self-control and composure not to just rewind and blow up the place, before hissing through her clenched teeth.

"What the _fuck_? Why are you feeding them? And why the _fuck_ aren't you two actively trying to slit her throat? At the very least, you could show some sign of hostility, for fuck's sake! After everything I went through, god…" She couldn't stretch her rant to the full three-minute length she had intended for it to be, not because her anger bottomed out, but because verbalizing each word brought unbearable pain to her head. Another migraine then, and not a mild one at that.

"Max! Max, are you oka-

"Don't you dare '_Max_' me, young lady! You have absolutely no idea how-

The pain exploded inside her mind, cutting her off mid-sentence, much to her annoyance. Only realizing this now, Chloe rushed to their medicine cabinet in search for some painkillers that they always kept in handy for such occassions like these. The problem with that, though, was that it was located in their bathroom, and the moment she left the dining table tension began filling the air once again, but this time not as much out of hostility as it was awkwardness.

"Um… hi?" The younger man – boy, she corrected herself – turned around from his plate of waffle to look at Max, and only then did she realize how young he actually was; barely 9 to 10 years old, if she had to hazard a guess. His appearance screamed everything about mixed latino, from dark hair to tanned skin, and especially eyes that are as black as raven. Yet, the look from his eyes told her he'd seen and learnt more than herself, in all eighteen years of her existence, ever had. Though if she was being honest, she didn't learn that much from meeting his eyes, but rather from the long, horrible and definitely painful scar that ran across the length of his left cheek.

Staring so intensely that you forgot to blink was probably a rude behaviour, if his self-conscious response was of any indication. "Hey, what're you staring at? It's a battle scar, not a stupid wound I _didn't_ get when I trip over a stupid rock just because I _wasn't_ looking, which I swear I really was!" The reply started out directed at her, but somehow she got the impression it ended as an apology to the other man instead, whose attention was already on at her by that time. His face was more mature than the boy, with a long gash running across his forehead and ending dangerously close to his right eye, that another milimetre longer and he would've lost half his vision. Other than that, his face bore so much resemblance to the other one that she dared say they were related by blood, if she hadn't known better.

"You…" The half accusation, half inquiry hung mid-air, indefinite, as if the man himself knew not what to say and yet, at the same time, wanted nothing more than to spew venemous curses at her for simply looking at him. If looks could kill, she had a stinging suspicion she would be a pile of molten flesh and bones by that point.

"Yes, me, myself and I, the one and only Max Caulfield. Your point?" She bit back a sigh, exasperated with this never-ending act. They were okay with Chloe, but not with her? Was that another curse of the time-bender, to be hated by everyone? An idea popped up in her head, suggesting that if she hadn't chimed her nosy head in the first time around, they and Chloe would get along just fine, no extra rewind required. Honestly, she had only half the heart to argue with that line of reasoning.

Chloe had finished whatever the hell it was that took her an eternity to find her some pills and returned carrying them on her hand, with a bottle of water on the other. Max practically swallowed them whole before sipping water beforehand, prompting a firm scolding from the blue-haired punk. It didn't matter, the pain had already subsided, and her world finally stopped spinning for a moment long enough for her to regain her bearings. Only then that she noticed herself resting comfortably on the wooden recliner in the corner of their spacious living area, and how her hands and legs were bound tightly to the chair – _wait,_ _what?_

"Chloe? Can you explain what've my arms and legs done to deserve being tied?" She even raised an eyebrow, for dramatic purpose. Chloe raised a hand to the back of her neck, scratching at an invisible spot while giving her a sheepish grin.

"Um… they felt uncomfortable with you and your hands free, and you were passed out anyway, so I… um…

"God, Chloe! You tied _me_ – your best friend in this world – up, because _they_ – random strangers who I'm certain you've never met before – felt fucking _uncomfortable_?"

Meeting her glare was Chloe's guilty confession. "Um… yeah?"

"Jesus, Chloe!"

"Alright, stop calling my name out every five seconds, will you? It's not like I have infinite time on my hands to process everything like you do!" She snapped, tension coiled tightly between her raised shoulders. _Dang it, _she shouldn't've lost her cool like that.

"Okay, okay, jeez, I forgive you, okay? Really, even if I was unconscious, is that any way to treat a friend? Now, untie me."

"Um… not so sure you get it right, but I don't think she really _can_ do that, even if she wanted to." The young boy answered when Chloe was silent for a second too long, reminding her of their presence in the room.

"Huh, really? And why would that be?" She made certain that the sarcastic skepticism dripping from her tone was palpable to even the most clueless person, partly because she was annoyed of these strangers, but mostly because _who on Earth do they think they are to speak to her like this in her own house?_

"I don't know… how about the fact that the metal beams holding you in place is a bit, y'know, too firm and secured for average human strength to bend?" Now it was Chloe who was doing the witty backtalk. But there was a certain truth to her voice, one that she didn't recognize before due to the effect of the pills; there were literally metal beams warped out of shape around her wrists and ankles to hold them in place.

What in _hell? How could this be even possible?_ Her mind numbed for a moment, working through the haze of the pills to deliver a straight, clear thought. And that thought contained a faint, indistinct memory of being _disintegrated_ in an alternate timeline. "You!" Her eyes instantly narrowed at the young boy, all sort of unspoken aversion sparking like live electricity in her furious glare.

"Wait, you knew Daniel and his power?" Questioned both the other man and Chloe, almost simultaneously with each word matching in speed, tempo, and the undisguised aghast underneath. She would've rolled her eyes, had it not hurt her concussed head like raw, feral hell.

"Not at first, but after a thousand rewinds or something, yeah, we had time to get to know." She grouched instead.

Chloe nodded sympathetically, her brows shot to her hairline, an indicator that she'd solved a puzzling wonder inside her mind. Probably something alone the lines of "whatever the hell happened, Max?" or "why didn't you rewind it away?". The other man, though, only seemed more puzzled, perplexed, confused, basically all the emotions a normal person would have when they first hear about Max's temporal manipulating ability. In a sense, she almost felt bad for him.

The younger boy beat him to the elephant in the room, however. "Wait… rewind, as in, time-rewind? Turning-back-time rewind?"

"Yeah, we were getting to that part, before Max awoke, anyway." Chloe finished lamely, trying – and spectacularly failing – to avert their interest.

"Yes! Why didn't I think of that before? That explained everything, really, it explained everything! Why you always knew what was about to happen, how you're always prepared for us, how you never fell for one of our traps, how you ambushed every one of our own ambush… Daniel, that explained everything!" The older man was feverish, speaking way too fast for her comatose hearing to follow, and frankly she wasn't that interested anyway.

"Wow, super cool! I can make things fly, which is pretty awesome too, but not as cool as yours. Still, imagine it, turning back time itself; how cool is that?" _Daniel_, as it would seem, spoke. His voice was so different, so full of childish, carefree innocence than the other venomous, confrontational one he'd raised at her before the rewinds, she couldn't imagine it all being the same person all along. The exhilaration was palpable in the air; the boy was so excited that he might even rattle a few clutters on their dining table. Fortunately, Chloe seemed to notice that as well.

"Well, you can have all the fun with her later, but at least let's get her untied, alright? I'm pretty sure we've firmly established that Max Caulfield – at least this Max Caulfield anyway – is no harm to you and your brother, so can you please kindly remove those iron bands?" Chloe added as a side note when her eyes brushed across the mess that used to be their dining area. "And preferably, I would appreciate it if you return them to our dining chairs as well, y'know, where you forcefully ripped it out with that telekinesis of yours?"

"Oh, right, I totally forgot about that. Yeah, she's cool. You're both cool." He raised his right hand in the exact same manner that would give her _disintegration_ flashback for days to come, and the pressure on her wrists was no more, followed by her ankles. She was free to move from the recliner, but her strength had very much bled out entirely with the rewinds, so in the end, on the chair she remained.

"No Daniel, this could be a trick all along! Why did you do that?" The older man pushed the boy – his brother, apparently – aside and stepped forward, as if to inspect Max for himself. Well, he could do whatever he want, she decided. She was juiced out entirely, too tired to give a damn.

That said, she still opposed to the idea of being prodded like a wild animal. The moment his gloved fingers was centimetres away from her skin, she grabbed his wrist, or at least attempted to, because as expected, her disoriented depth perception caused her to grab thin air instead. Still, a hand closed around his wrist. Chloe's manicured hand, she realized.

"Don't touch her."

The statement was firm, lack of the friendliness that was there just a moment ago. She changed from this easy, sociable and likable persona into the real Chloe that was her friend, her lover, always protective and so caring whenever she was concerned. She couldn't help it, she was falling head over heels to her all over again, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do about it. Perhaps it was true, that whatever timeline this girl emerged from, she would always stay true to herself, despite whatever life's bullshit had been thrown at her. That stray thought brought a smile to her lips, and she made a promise to herself that if he memories still doesn't return in the end, she would gather the courage and ask the million-dollar question herself. Seriously though, she needed to find another way of phrasing it other than "Hey, which timeline did you come from? I messed up so much that I can't even remember which timeline's Chloe were you. Hopefully not one with so much destruction, yes?"

Back in the moment though, the man – who, by his appearance, Max hazarded a guess that he wasn't much older – or younger, for that matter – than herself or Chloe – was staring at the girl, and likewise she was at him. As interested as she was to watch and see how this stare-down would work out, she didn't think she could do anymore rewind that day.

"Alright, knock it, both of you. I have power, and so does your brother, everyone knows that now. Go and talk to each other, work out everything, and let me have my slumber in peace. We'll talk later, when I recover enough to anyway, and in the meantime don't cause a fuss, okay? I'm sure none of you likes to have yourself rewound and overwritten by a new timeline entirely, so please refrain from causing so much ruckus while I'm not around, okay? I'm out."

By the end of her speech, the pills had finally worked their biological magic, and Max fell into a dreamless snooze.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Max Caulfield awoke the next morning to the most terrible, terrible mother-of-all-headache ever, but at least it was still in range for her to endure without the help of another miracle pill. Pushing the lids of her eyes open, they felt so much like dead weight on her head that she half-considered to just leave them close forever. The sound of Chloe's sucking on her bottom lips, however, negated that thought immediately. She just had to know what crazy idea the rebel was up to this time, if the mischevious gesture was any indication of her naughty thoughts.

"There there, I know you're awake, so drop the act and rise and shine, babe! Knew you couldn't resist the lip-sucking, huh?" She seemed so smug that Max was almost tempted to rewind just to wipe it off her face, but the headache quickly disposed of that idea.

"Shut up."

"Oh, come on, don't leave me hangin' and chicken out now, matey! We've got the wonderful world spread out in front of us, awaiting to be explored! And endless of them, apparently." Chloe didn't even attempt to disguise the childish glee in her voice.

"Urgh, come on! We're too old for this." She snapped without any real venom, mostly annoyance. The final verse of Chloe's sentence was lost on her for at least a minute, though. "Wait, what do you mean, 'apparently'?"

"Well, Your sleepy head refuses to wake up until you've got your fair share of sleep, so me and Seanie-boy here had a bit of time to catch up ourselves. And let's just say they… haven't got the easiest time growing up with a time-rewinding empress and her oppressive tyranny, 's all." She briefed through the last of her words casually, as if she wasn't dropping a bombshell on poor Max's concussed head. Of course, she wouldn't let that slip in a millenium and a few more.

"What do you mean? I want an explanation. Now."

"And one you will have." She smiled, patting Max's forehead then made for the door. "But you're not gonna get it until you get your sleepy ass up!" She left the room, leaving the lights on whether it was an honest mistake or intentional move. Either way, Max let out a curse under her breath and got up. The truth, as it would seem, couldn't take a few minutes of snoozing.

* * *

Emerging fresh anew and no less grumpy from the bathroom, Max was met with a scene so out of this world that she had to do a double-take. And then a triple-take, just for the impossibility of it.

Gathered around the table were the two latino boys, nothing alike the scary strangers attacking her and Chloe last night. They had completely stripped from their armors, revealing malnourished skinny frames beneath; yet Max could see through the thin fabric of Chloe's tees to make out the rough underline of well-toned muscles bulging underneath. In casual clothing, they looked so… ordinary, that just the thought of battling the same people last night was incredibly hard to believe, had she not known better herself. Their face wasn't as hostile, so she assumed it was an extra effect of the armor, to impose intimidation upon others. Without all the out-of-place accessories, they were really just young boys, the older one definitely an underage minor and the other not even close to teenagehood. Composing a mental note to herself to ask about their age later, Max made haste to join them by the dining table, her stomach growling at the smell of Chloe's infamous pancakes, second only to Joyce's very own.

The girl was finishing up on a fresh batch, paying no notice to her arrival other than a curt nod, thoroughly opposite from the bright and dorky one she'd just encountered barely half an hour ago in the privacy of their bedroom. She wasn't a fool; she knew the stark contrast had something to do with their unnatural presence, and already having realized this they kept shifting uncomfortably in their seats, turning this way and that as if to ward off an invisible horde of ants. Mulling over which approach to make, she decided to keep up the relaxed cascade and pretend nothing had happened the night before, since they were all doing it anyway. All the comfortably padded dining chairs were occupied, so she had to retrieve an extra stool from under the table – Chloe wasn't joking when she said this rental was a house for two and two only. She gave a simple nod to acknowledge their existence, paid their forced nonchalance, nervous glance and awkward silence no mind as she tied a hankerchief around her neck, a habit turned routine after one of their vacation to Paris, if the random and totally unexpected flash of memory was any accurate.

Chloe served the full batch – with sugarcane syrup instead of maple, as a nod to their tropical wherabouts. Placing it in the middle of the round table, she went to make some more, only now realizing she would be serving twice the usual amount. Max mourned the loss of her favourite seat, but it was being occupied by the small boy, _Daniel_, her helpful memory suggested. He wasted no time in licking the dish clean before leaving neither her nor the other boy a slice, just as to be expected with anyone never having tasted the pure, unfiltered bliss that was a full breakfast at the Two Whales diner. _Where you probably had destroyed in this timeline_, the monster inside her head reminded. She stuffed it into a box reserved for 10 a.m instead, simply because it was too early to deal with this shit, especially without highly-concentrated caffeine running in her veins first.

Her subtle grimace wasn't lost to the young boy, however. Fortunately, the real meaning behind it was. "Oh! Sorry I ate your part, please don't be mad and rewind us out of existence, please? I was just hungry, y' know? It's been days since I've had a meal like this, and it's so good, and I didn't even realize I was-

"Shush, Daniel." The older boy, _Sean_, interrupted, his voice authoritative and stringent. Daniel quieted himself almost instantly, and she had to hold back from questioning this kind of behaviour and what had he done to earn that obediance from a 9-year-old, not because she was nosy, but because she was concerned for the child. Even if he was telekinetic and could rip her apart molecules by molecules if she angered him enough; one simply couldn't tolerate child abuse under any form or excuse.

"Sorry, Sean. I just rambled again, didn't I?" Now she definitely needed to address the matter, because the boy was outright _apologizing_ for eating when he was hungry. But once again, the two of them succeeded in robbing her of words right out of her mouth when the older boy pulled his brother in for a hug. There was no sign of struggling or disconsent; they shared an intimate contact in front of absolute strangers, and yet didn't flinch even when they'd noticed her staring. And they were boys, _for crying out loud-_

Wait. She wasn't staring and thinking out loud again, was she?

"I'd say you might wanna turn down your silent musing a little, or they wouldn't really be, well, 'silent' musing." Chloe's sarcastic reminder confirmed her stinging suspicion. They boys themselves weren't that uncomfortable though, just when she thought they couldn't surprise her anymore.

"We… kinda get that a lot. And it's okay, really. People did more rude things than just staring sometimes, so we're kinda used to that by now." When Daniel spoke, the scar on his cheek moved along with every words, which only resulted in her staring even harder. "But seriously though, I would appreciate it if you didn't stare at my scar, please?"

Actually averting her eyes like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Max muttered an inaudible apology under her breath. She definitely didn't enjoy being chatised by someone half her age, for all the irony of that mental image.

"Here comes another shipment, so y'all better not be fighting over it again." Chloe saved her awkward ass just in time with the next batch, but rather than putting it in the middle of the table she poured it directly on Sean's plate. "And you better not be thinking about giving it to him," she flicked her head at Daniel, "because if I'm being honest, you look worse than a walking skeleton. I'll make some more, and there'll be plentiful for everyone, so shut up and eat it, yes? I don't want to see any leftover." In the end, she actually put her hands on her hips, standing in that legendary motherly pose until she could boss the whole plate down until his throat. Max assumed playing mother was just another Chloe-ristic trait she'd yet to fully discover.

It wasn't until Chloe had left with the empty plate that both boys let out the breath they had been holding, and Max couldn't help but giggle. "Sean, you should've seen her when I left the bathroom door open. I'm telling you, she's a force of nature." Daniel spoke in that hushed tone specifically savored only for midnight ghost stories, which only made it all the while much more hilarious to the point she almost couldn't hide her amusement.

"That she is, _enano_, that she is." He concluded, coughing out some bit of an undigested slice. It would seem he hadn't been entirely lying when he told Chloe he would choke if she continued to watch him like a hawk. "Wow, how can you stand her in the morning?" He addressed her, taking her by surprise.

"Well, um… I try, I guess?" She offered, not really that thrilled with the small chat and uncomfortable with being the center of attention. "She woke you violently too?"

"Nah, I didn't sleep, so I woke him when I heard her approaching." Daniel shrugged, as if the fact he'd skipped an entire night of sleep was nothing unusual. "It's just a habit we've formed, really, at all time there'll be one of us awake to take guard. It's just too risky with the Empress-

"Daniel!" Sean cut him off mid-sentence. The boy was confused for a moment, but then meeting his brother's eyes, he understood immediately. They could have an entire private conversation just with eye contact, she'd learnt, and in all honesty she was a bit envious of the special bond they shared. Whether it was due to Daniel's… _peculiarity_, or just due to the blood link between them, Max wanted to have that with Chloe as well. Though in terms of intensity, the jealousy was no match for her curiosity at the mention of the mysterious "Empress".

"Who's that?"

"Um… who?" Now Sean was wary, if the alarmed look on his face was anything to go by. He must've caught onto something. Was it her apathetic tone?

"The Empress, like you said. Who's she?" She pushed again, oblivious of the real reason behind their reluctance.

"She's… um… uh, how to put this, really? She's… uh…" As he struggled for words, Daniel raised his plate into the air with a begging gesture, and only then did she realize Chloe had dropped whatever she was doing to stand beside her, attracted by the sensitive topic they were about to breach, but mostly concerned of her possible reactions. She didn't know that by the time, of course.

"She's this… person, who's, well…" While Sean stuttered for a choice of words, Daniel was still extending his plate in the air, because obviously Chloe was too invested in the revelation to notice him.

"What?" Her patience was wearing thin, and she would've snapped had it not been for Chloe's hand gripping her shoulder firmly.

"Oh, come on, what's there to stutter over?" Daniel groaned, waving his empty dish in the air for extra dramatic purpose. "She's you, and you're her. There! What's so hard about that? Now, more pancakes, please? Like you promised!"

Once the cat was out of the box, time literally trickled down to a stop, and Max didn't even realize she was using her power for a straight minute later.

"What do you mean-

But she never got to finish that sentence. All of a sudden, Sean gripped his neck and coughed violently, blood spluttering from his mouth so much that it was almost as if he was choking on his own blood. All of a sudden, everything exploded into disarray and chaos; Daniel screaming, terrified for his brother's wellbeing; Chloe's rush to grab a pill from the bathroom; the familiar sensation of having every molecule comprising one's body grabbed and pulled in every direction by an invisible force. But this time, it was even more terrifying, because Max knew he wasn't doing it on purpose, wasn't even aware of himself doing it. Around the house lighter clusters were levitated mid-air, and heavier objects rattled constantly on the ground, as if fighting a loosing battle between the Earth's stable gravity pull and this mystical power's outburst.

She didn't know what to do, but she knew this – whatever it was – couldn't be allowed to happen. That she had to stop it, somehow, anyhow.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, touched into the strange presence at the back of her mind, and called upon the power.

* * *

To be honest, this started out as a one-shot in my mind while waiting for S2E3's release, before I gave it an actual shot. With all the irony in the world, it morphed into a multi-chapter journey, and I decided to follow it until the end, to see where it would lead. Hope you all are enjoying the ride until now :)

P/s: hope this doesn't sound selfish, but some hearts and/or reviews, please? I'd love to know if y'all are enjoying the story, or is there anything I can do to help make your experience even better :3


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Sean sighed and flopped down on a random trunk, too tired and discouraged to even think of walking anymore. He felt the gooey moss clinging to the backside of his pants, but at first it only registered as a cool sensation. A bit damp, wet and utterly disgusting should've been his first clue, but he had reasoned it had something to do with the early morning dew, and made no motion to check what it was, or move from his spot either.

Hence, the reason why he was crouching by the river, scrubbing the adhesive substance clean off his underwear with every once of strength he possessed, which wasn't doing much help other than spreading the green stain even wider. His hands were red, blistering from enhanced sensitivity of being dipped underwater for too long and from the mere friction of scrubbing against what should be soft fabric, but felt like shagged rocks by the time he was done. Didn't matter anyway; it was still wet, along with his worn khakis, so he'd have to make the journey back to his cave half-naked, with the hope that no pervert would be patrolling the woods on that specific day.

He'd need to make a fire to dry his clothes, but the task no longer sounded taxing like it did the first time yesterday, when his fingers were shivering, his stomach completely empty, his mind spinning in a haze, and his kindle wet. He'd already gathered the fuel, and quite an abundance of them, just in case another unexpected storm would hit. In fact, it was the first priority in his mind when he set out to gather harvestable today, and it probably was the only thing he succeeded in not screwing up. Anything he even attempted to accomplish after that point resulted in pure, unfiltered and irremediable disaster.

He was hungry, so he recalled every natural instinct dormant within his bloodline – sounded ridiculous, he knew, but with the hunger rampaging on and on he couldn't think straight – and put himself in the feet of his ancestors, the cavemen. What would they do?

They would hunt, he'd concluded. But he had no dellusion, he was without any weapon other than a Swiss switchblade, and his physiques were nowhere near nimble or flexible, so he'd let the option drop. If hunting fail, how would he get food?

He'd resolved to searching blindly for some harvestables, true to his original intention, but the rule of thumb about identifying poisonous and edible fruit was a total bullshit, or at least his memory about it was. He'd stayed away from the colourful berries, tried only a bite of the advised black and blue, and ended up earning himself a free gagging session as an unforgetable memorabilia from the experience. Soon after, he'd resolved never to trust in his instincts again, and had shoved whatever left remaining of it down to a hole he so fondly addressed as his inferiority complex. Future Sean would deal with that; present Sean would try and keep the both of them alive with some meat instead. After all, and he quoted himself,_ what could go wrong with meat?_

_A lot_, _a whole fucking lot_, as it'd turned out. Finding small branches was easy enough a task; the storm'd already done most of the wanton destruction for him, all he had to do was gather the remnants. Vines lying in jumbled mess on the ground served as wonderful substitution for strong cordage, and in the blink of an eye he'd constructed an elaborate system which his _papi_ would've been proud of. He even found a natural crevice deep and slippy enough not to allow an animal the purchase it'd required to escape from, so he didn't even need to use his makeshift shovel. All he had to do was put the net inside the hole, attach an string to it, and cover it up with some leaves, sprinkling some delicious bait on top.

He was stupid for even following this line of thought. Like, really, what did he think he was? A nature survivalist? Hours and endless boring hours of watching Discovery channel could never make up for his lack of actual, competent field knowledge or experience, and even then he doubt studying about them in actual academical resources would make him more adaptable to the law of the wild than they would in a modern, suburban setting. Though for someone whose only exposure to such elements were occasional camping trips here and there, he'd have to admit he was doing a pretty good job setting up the traps. Or at least, until he realized he hadn't thought of a way to retrieve the animals he'd caught.

His traps were steady, his bait appealing, and positioning more than excellent. Yet, he forgot the most important thing, how to access them later. In the end, he caught a bunch of rabbits, a small lynx, and even some mice, for what they were worth. The moment he pulled on the string, it snapped under the weight of these animals combined, and while he ended up doiing a good deed releasing them back into the wild, his ravenous stomach was one to suffer instead. The rest was pretty self-explanatory; disappointed, he sat on a random log, and paid the ultimate price.

"Fuck this!" He snapped, hurling the ball of clothing on his arm to the ground, and just as his luck would have it, into a puddle of mud that wasn't even there a second ago. In that tiny fraction of a second, he wondered, if whether this was god's way to punish him for having attempted to take his own life, or god's less-than-subtle nudge for him to do the right thing and cut his wrist again. Eitherway, he found himself a care away from actually answering that question, or picking them up and washing the skin of his hands off, again, in the same ten minutes.

So, it was with that darkness of mind and graveness of mentality that he trodded back to the cave, the certain nudity no longer a discomfort as much as it was an annoyance. He recalled having a spare set of clothes somewhere in his backpack, it would have to do for now. And in that same predicament, for all the irony in the world, was how he was reconciliated with a certain PG-13 brother.

"No, Sean! Don't enter, it's a trap!" He'd heard Daniel voice, and it was just that, his voice; the content of his warning completely overshot his comprehension, either from the ecstacy filling up his inside or the numbness this really, really bad day had left him in. Had even had the decency to pivot on his heels, pull the edge of his hoodie down as far as they could go, to provide whatever coverage it could, before he could register _who_ he was embarassed with. Before the insignificant sentiment was lost on him, and he no longer gave a shit about being intimately exposed to the rest of the world, his hands too busy covering his mouth in that typical shell-shocked expression.

When he turned around again, still blinking his eyes rapidly to dispell whatever nefarious and cruel dellusion this was, the boy was still there, unmoving, unwavering, just like the stick of grilled fish granted to him earlier that morning. In that brotherly way of his, he swept his eyes across the younger Diaz between the span of a second, pleased to find no evidence of harm of injury whatsoever, but only a string of cordage tightly binding his wrists together. And that was all it took for his vision to be filled with red, for any grain of rational resolution to be thrown out of the window and overprotective-older-brother-mode to kick in instead.

"Daniel!" He rushed the last foot between them, not a single care about it possibly being a trap and what not. And with a speed that he was pretty sure would outmatch any other opponent on the tracks, he was less than a second away from landing on the younger boy and toppling them both over, when he was forcefully yanked back by the hood of his shirt.

"Well there, I see something really haven't changed at all. Still playing the alpha wolf, Seanie-boy?" A voice taunted, echoing softly on the back of the neck, so soft that he was certain a strong wind would carry it miles of distance with no difficulty. Its close proximity was alarming, because whoever the owner of it was, they were certainly invading his personal space, if the ghost of their breath arousing goosebumbs on his skin was any indication. But the malicious, disdainful and malevolent abhorrence in the voice was what truly put him on edge; it was so full of hate and animosity that he would easily believe them right then and there if someone told him that they had always been lifelong enemies, with nothing more than the other's head on a pike being their ultimate aspiration, and that they would stop at nothing to achieve just that.

But if his face was radiating with fear and anxiety, then Daniel's face must be a reflection of his own, only ten times worse. He was about to open his mouth and let out a few words of reassurance, that it would be okay, they would work it out, as long as they were together, he realized it was _not_. How could it be okay, if his own mouth didn't obey him? He was shaking, trembling, and seeing the pathetic mess that he must've been only worsened the situation considerably. Daniel started whimpering quietly, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Sean couldn't help but feeling like the worst brother ever, which was probably the truth too. He so wanted to move, to close their distance, to put his arms around the smaller shoulders and become an anchor for the boy to weep in, sheltering with his own body the harsh cruelty of the world. He wanted to whisper soothing comfort into his ears, wipe away that tear stain and replace it with the carefree, lopsided grin that had become Daniel's trademark. He wanted to reassure himself, both of them, that the other was real, and within their arms, and that nothing could ever take them away from each other ever again.

But when he moved his charred lips, no words came out. When he reached out his hand, Daniel didn't reciprocate the gesture. And when he attempted to smile himself, even if only to fool the both of them into the false illusion that he wasn't entering panic with every fibre of his sane composure, he felt wet, hot tears rolling down his own cheeks instead. He didn't even realize he was crying until it reached the end of his chin and continued rolling down his exposed throat.

The teardrop continued rolling, and Daniel began crying even louder. He was puzzled; why did he make no effort to move toward him, or at least to say something? Why did it feel so much like the moment when their dad… in Seattle, the moment when it all started, sending them tumbling to their runaway fugitives' lives? Why was there an invisible pressure against the soft skin of his throat, that only deepened as time went on? Why did it feel like their time was limited, that he should burn the image of Daniel into his mind before he was robbed of the chance ever to again?

"This is for Max, you barbarious murderer!" The voice had announced, still close to the back of his neck, but no longer a soft whisper. It was most similar to an outraged accusation, a war cry, something one would say in their last moment before rushing blindly into a battle they knew there would be no returning from. It was filled with anger and aggression, but rising above all was the undisguised agony, unconcealed anguish, and searing pain.

It was exactly what he would become if Daniel was to be taken away from him, he realized with a shudder.

The teardrop continued to roll until it blended in with the slick, crimson rich and dripping liquid that originated from the slit on his throat, one he hadn't even felt. But now that he did, it didn't hurt as much as he'd expect it to, except for perhaps only the slightest sting of prickling your finger with a sharp needle. But with the puncture wound then ripped open and the flow of an artery unregulated, dampening the front of his hoodie and sputtering in all direction. He was bleeding out, and the dizziness following soon after alarmed him of how little time he had left.

He stared into Daniel's face, now a deafening, unconsolable sobbing that took away his ability to breathe. The boy was turning and thrashing on his tied position on the ground, desperately trying to do anything within his power to prevent his brother from completely bleeding out, but to no avail; the bond was too strong for his 9-year-old underdeveloped muscles to break open. And without the option to at least turn around or cover his eyes, he was made to sit and watch him being drained of the last gallon of blood, as if actively participating in his worst nightmare, only that this one was different from all others.

It was _real_.

He felt himself reaching the end, the haziness in his mind getting more muddy and unclear until he could barely distinguish a thought from another. A work of his lack of blood, he would hazard a guess, but not that it mattered now anyway. His mysterious assassin holding the sharp sword to his neck, never relenting their firm grab on his hands or revealing a fraction of their identity. He couldn't break open even if he tried, and he doubted his weakened self could muster enough strength to pull off something like that anyway, not when the end had already come so close. Death was literally just a knock away, and Sean knew he couldn't hold on any longer; his time was simply up.

So he let go. Releasing the tension in his muscles, the fight in his stance, the hope in his eyes. He was just as well a corpse by that time, and if he had to face his fate anyway he'd prefer to spend the last of his energy committing the image of some he loved into mind. _Love_, he corrected himself, because that was something even time couldn't – and wouldn't – change between them. Sean would personally make sure of that, whatever lifeform he happened to incarnate in the afterlife.

Daniel had stopped struggling against his bound too. He must've come to the same conclusion, because they spent the next few seconds just staring at each other helplessly, taking consolation in the fact that what was coming was the inevitable, already bound by destiny, by powers beyond their reach.

And that, was when it finally, _finally_ kicked in. The same power that had brought him back from the verge of insanity and self-destruction, only a few hours that just seemed like an entire lifetime ago. It emerged from the unknown, salvaging his soul and his beating heart, then dissipated just as mysteriously into the unfathomable. It gave him a push, motivated him to move on, and put him back on his tracks. Now, it was prolonging his time, allowing him a second chance, for better or for worse.

And in that split-second when everything slowed down to a complete, total and impenetrable standstill, he found the will to struggle, to live, to just _survive_. It had been missing for quite some time, carefully buried under dark, gloomy visionaries of hopelessness, of a future without his brother. Now, as he was right in front of him, so close, and yet so far away, so untouchable, it brought back within him the fire that had been flickering so dangerously close to total distinguishment. Now, it was burning fiercely, aggressively, viciously. And it demanded its younger brother back.

Sean let the fire consumed him whole. This time, he had the knowledge, the element of surprise, and the _will_.

This time, he would be prepared.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

When time picked up its natural flow, he was a little more than 5 minutes back into the past – present, whatever the current point he was standing at was called. In terms of space, his past self was assumably walking back to the cave at this point, and as so he was still a good mile away from the camp, ball of wet clothes still resting mud-free on his hand. He spent no time idling around and put them on instead, dampness be damned; if he was to have his throat slit anyway, then at least he could be fully covered while it happened. In the distance, the cave was just a tiny dot, its entrance nearly indistinguishable with how small it appeared. Even with his eyes narrowed into thin lines, he couldn't make out much other than the blurry, disfigured entrance, let alone the boy inside. This wasn't working; whatever it was that he planned to do, he had to get closer. The only thing he could hope would be different this time was his own alertness, as he made his way carefully back to the camp; trying his best not to snap and twigs under his feet and alarm the anonymous assassin of his approach.

Although it really wouldn't matter anyway, if they were stealthy and skillful enough to sneak up behind him and slit his throat without him knowing in the first place, not until he was bleeding halfway to death already. Though really, what was he thinking, dropping all his guards and just rushing blindly at Daniel? It was more than obvious that it was a trap, with the boy's tied wrists, his frantic warning, and just the eery silence that was the atmosphere surrounding them. What was he expecting, his brother who was most defintely kidnapped the day before, returned to him out of nowhere or no apparent reason? They even had the decency to stalk him and find his location just to put the boy back right where he was missing from? Like, seriously, what was his first clue?

Wouldn't matter, their plan would fail anyway. Daniel was safe, unharmed, and right now his first priority would be to keep his own throat from being slit open, thank you very much. The cave was already in sight, its details clearing out the closer he got, and if he peered hard enough he could almost make out the outline of his backpack, resting closer to the entrance than the rest of his stuffs. He slowed his pace; if the assailant appeared out of nowhere in the first… timeline? – then they must be hiding by this point, obscured from his perspective if he continued on in a direct march to the cave entrance.

So, he pivoted on his heel and took a detour instead. It wasn't that hard to figure out where they could be hiding; right above the cave entrace was a small ledge, quite similar to an awning of a window that was originally the reason how he's found the cave by chance, in his hurry to take cover from the torrential rain under practically anything steady enough not to crumble and collapse upon his head right away. Large boulders of stone protruding from the hill behind made for the perfect hiding spot, and its rocky texture provided excellent camouflage to just about any colour of clothing. Even more ideal than statistically possible, it was right above their head; they could hear everything underneath and take their chance just at the right moment, especially when it was only a jump away from the cave itself. It was almost as if nature had been planning for this all along ever since the Earth started terraforming, it was ridiculous.

Getting up there wasn't difficult, he needed only extend his arm and he could reach it with ease; but he had to sneak up on the other person's ambush, so that was a definite no-go. Direct hand-to-hand combat was out of the question; they could be a trained, deadly killer and he would still be the same 16-year-old frail, skinny teenager he was yesterday, his only battle expertise years of watching chinese martial arts, and he was positive that flashy visual effects would do him no good. Letting them see him and alarming them of his presence was not an option, because he would be as good as dead by then, and there was no way in the nine realms of hell that he would depend on the weird-ass crazy time-reverse phenomenon that only kicked in whenever he was mortally injured.

So in the end, he settled for a classic, old-school distraction. Throwing a pebble over the boulders, he quickly ducked into a bush nearby, observing from behind the branches his assailant's behaviour. Apparently, his wild throw met its mark, if the string of curse following after was any indication.

"Son of a whoring bitch, you sneaky brat better fucking run or the last thing you'll see-

It was a woman, as her slim and flexible physiques suggested. Hooded top-to-bottom in a dark robe, Sean couldn't get a glimpse of her face or any part of her body that could give away her identity, other than some strands of blue hair tethered into dreadlocks that were shoulder-length. She silenced herself when she realized nobody was within eyesight, or hearing distance at that. Sweeping her eyes around in quick rounds, she settled back down, not aggravated enough to leave her post. Sean would have to try again, something bigger and harder to ignore this time.

And that, was how a whole minute later, the woman was literally yelping, partly from surprise, but mostly from the wooden stick he'd set fire to with his lighter and thrown at her with. "Argh! Stupid bitch! Come out, wherever you are! I know you're hiding around here, but you'll never get away with this, assbrat! Fucking coward! If I ever get my hands on-

Her curses were interrupted when she noticed a shadow bolting from the corner of of peripheral vision; but by that time she was already too late. Sean didn't do tracks for nothing, and silently he thanked his coach for always being strict with them and pushing them harder, because the long weapon she'd abandoned in her hurry to put out the fire was now firmly in his hands.

"Step away! Or I'll do it!" He'd said, still short of breath from the hundred-metre sprint, but more due to the effect of adrenaline pumping in his veins. He'd disarmed her, mounted the foot-long weapon himself, and had pushed her to the edge of the cliff, for what it was worth. He was in control now, and he could do this.

"Well well, isn't it our favourite Seanie-boy? Saw through my trap, huh? To be honest I didn't think you were that smart." She laughed, in that short of insanity way only dellusional villians could, but rather than apprehension he felt only fear, rattling at his core, vibrating with every shaky intake of her breath as she kept laughing. He guessed he understood why bad people just had to do it now, because whatever intention it was meant to be having, it certainly was wreaking havok on the confidence he was already lacking. "Figured you'd rush blindly into the lion's den, the moment you saw the boy. But you never cease to amaze me, once again. Well done."

"Why do you want to kill me? Speak!" Sean tried to ignore her incredulous look, her raised brow, and specifically her unfazed reaction to someone pointing a sword at them. It was textbook intimidation, only completely reversed; she was not threatened in the least bit, and was even smirking when she recognized the panic spreading on his face.

"Seriously? The insane, I-lost-all-memory act all again? You knew it didn't work last time when I gave you that scar. Wait a sec… where's your scar?" She asked, genuine surprise bleeding into her voice. The rise of several decibels didn't help ease his nerves already too wracked from the tension and suspense.

"What scar? What're you talking about?" He had to keep his own voice from shaking, but it was sufficient to say he failed spectacularly.

"Oh, would you just quit it already? The act's getting old; at least you could've thought of something more creative, because it really isn't working, y'know? Though that shaky voice trick is a new one; I never thought I'd get to live long enough to hear Sean Diaz himself trembling, no less speaking to me. How'd you do it?" The woman took a step toward him and away from the cliff, unaffected in the slightest bit by the weapon he was wielding. His facial expression must've betrayed a part of the terror he was feeling, if her smug grin was anything to go by.

"What? Scared? The great Sean hesitating to bring the sword down on his enemy? Really, I don't have a single clue what's gotten into you, but if this really is an act, then I'd honestly advise you to drop it now." She took another step, and his knees grew weak. He wanted desperately to make his limbs move, to do anything, slashing at flesh or even at thin air, but they just _wouldn't_ heed his command. "Don't go any further, or I'll… I'll-

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" She taunted mercilessly, still advancing step by step, paying his weightless threat no mind. "Even if that's the truth, I wouldn't be surprised. In the course of only a day, I've seen you slit your own wrist, starved yourself, and shed some fucking _tears_." She spat the words venomously, and he found himself taken aback by the revelation that this stranger had been stalking him the whole time. "But worst of all, you ate the fish that your mortal enemy caught for you without a second care if it was poisoned or not, and you fucking _abandoned_ your lair without bringing any weaponry with you. Since when did the slayer of the Empress herself had got so… sloppy? You were lucky I prefer my enemies dead in my own hand rather than a merciful coward's play." By the end of her accusation, she was already within Sean's range. If he could just will his hand to move and make use of the sword, he could've easily sliced open her throat. But his arms simply didn't have any strength in them anymore, it was a miracle for them to even hold the weight of the instrument without dropping it right then and there. "Huh, can't even make the blow now? Bet you didn't even know I caught that fish, huh?"

The puzzle, finally solved. It was her who had granted him that meal, kidnapped Daniel, and planned this all along. "But… why? Why did you do all of this? What can you possibly gain from me or Daniel?"

Wrong question to ask. Her face darkened, all the playful taunting disappeared to be replaced with burning agony, raw and barely contained. "You don't get to kill someone and ask that question, _asshole_." Then she ripped the sword from his hand, and he let her; not consensually, of course, but with the resistance he offered, he might as well just hand it to her and skip all the innecessant drama.

"I didn't kill anyone!" He exclaimed, outraged, all caution and wariness thrown out of the window when she raised her sword to his neck, again. "I swear! That police officer shot my dad, and then there was an explosion, but I don't remember anything after that! I swear!"

Silence pervaded between them while the woman mulled over new information in silence, the weapon still resting dangerously close to his artery. In a moment, everything was still, almost as if time had frozen again, but Sean knew by the cogs he could see turning in her head that it wasn't. The woman was lost, deep in her thoughts, but her hand still firmly wrapped around the sword, and her reflex still as sharp as ever. Sean dared not try to run or fight back, he knew even the slightest twitch of his muscle would result in the slit he'd been dreading of. That tenseful, strained silence reigned on for an eternity, putting every strand of his hair to stand on end, eating away at his nerves until they were reduced to a shaky, incomprehensible mess, and tickling his throat with the ghostly sensation of being ripped apart, of having millions of ants stampeding to and fro constantly, until it finally, _finally_ came to an end.

"Either you both've gone nuts entirely, or you aren't Sean – the cold-blooded murderer Sean, despite the same appearance you two shared, that much was obvious." She concluded, retracting the sword. "But that doesn't mean you can safely turn to your brother and run away with him like this has never happened. Until you can prove indefinitely beyond a doubt that you aren't Sean Diaz, I will accompany you and your brother wherever, with my sword resting on your throat, so don't even think of trying anything funny." She said in the end, returning the weapon back to its holster on her leather belt, before jumping off from the cliff, leaving a confused, disoriented and very much disheveled Sean in her wake.

It took his sluggish mind at least another full minute to process everything and catch up with reality. Apparently, there was another Sean Diaz out there, as bizarre as that sounded, and the other one had killed someone that caused this woman to go savage. And she intended to take her anger out on him, the clueless one, instead, until he could come clean of his identity and prove that he – Sean Diaz, was not, indeed, _Sean Diaz_.

Just the thought of explaining everything to Daniel almost took away his will to live again. "Oh Sean, what trouble have you got yourself into this time?" He sighed to himself. The course of his life had turned so drastically these last few days that he wouldn't be surprised if his brother had gone telekinetic during the short time they were parted.

That said, he didn't expect to jump down the cliff – how silly was he to have forgotten that it was barely a two-metre-tall ledge? – to the sight of Daniel, the same little Daniel who he'd imagined would still be tied and whimpering on the ground by this time, holding out his hands and lifting his belongings mid-air like the implausibility that it was. As it would seem, blue-haired girl had somehow pissed him off beyond his average fit, if her being strangled mid-air was any indication.

He sighed, again for the second time in the last ten seconds, marvelling over how ridiculous his life had become as of late, almost wishing that the time-rewinding power hadn't activated the first time around and just let him bleed out in peace. Like, seriously, what was it with him and supernatural occurences?

For the time being, it was manifesting as his younger brother, apparently. The day was still young, and yet he'd already been so drained. Unable to just will himself to wake up from the never ending nightmare, he moved to intercept the raging boy instead. After all, blue-haired girl can only hold her breath for so long until her face started showing several shades of green and purple.

Of course, he didn't pass up the opportunity to let out a string of nasty curses while he was at it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

The incident just seemed to appear out of nowhere, one second they were still talking and eating, and the next he was choking to death on his own blood. Max wondered if it was just a sickness, a condition, and that her rewinding was pointless since it was something out of her reach. The long dormant heroine in her took exception to that, as it would seem, because she was filled with the sudden urge, with the irresistable impulse to travel to any extent and prevent that from happening. It was almost like Chloe and Arcadia Bay all over; eventhough she knew there would be no saving anyone, that the only difference she would be making would be sentencing herself to another broken heart and some psychological disorder, the urge _just wouldn't stop_. Not until she'd done the deed, and not even after that. She recognized the sensation, the nolstagia, the all too familiar _helplessness_, and knew beyond a doubt the moment it emerged, a flickering spark of idea momentarily passing her mind, that it would become another ghost, born out of the fucked-up place she addressed endearingly as her own unstable mental complex to haunt her until the end of days, no matter how many times she rewind and mess things up for the worse.

It was uncannily similar to the morning before, when she'd combated the demon with everything she had to offer, and yet still failed to escape the inevitable. She'd taken the camera, and in the end, had brought about another storm, another ruined reality, another broken timeline. Briefly, she wondered if these strangers showing up at her porch looking entirely out-of-this-world had anything to do with the storm she'd conjured. Though at least it was capable of being undone with a simple rewind, with no everlasting consequences to follow. After a while, the impulse grew strong, pulling on her nerves and raising goosebumbs behind her neck, until she could no longer disobey the call of temptation or resist the lust. So she used the power, enjoying the guilty pleasure of knowing she hadn't done it out of a godly intention to salvage anyone's soul, but more to satisfy her own demonic cravings.

Max rewound, that much was certain, and she didn't have any qualms about it as long as she was under the faux-impression that it was to save a person's life, no matter how fragile the odds of actually managing that may be. The only problem, was that she didn't know when to stop, so she decided to give it a wild shot. Incomprehensible backward speech replaced by meaningful forward talk, and Chloe was standing by the table the first time, pouring the first batch of pancakes down on the center plate.

Of course, in spite of how cosmically impossible was the probability she would gasp and shiver upon re-entering normal timeline right when Chloe looked up, she just _had_ to.

"Hey! Ground control to captain Max? Somebody's been busy rewinding again, I see. So, what immediate dangers do we need to take care of instantly? Gas leak?" She asked with forced nonchalance, but Max could practically see Chloe's muscles twitching under her skin, ready to response at any given moment. In their line of hitwomen's work, such flexibility was probably the main reason why they were still both alive by that point, her rational mind pointed out, and her memory reinforced that theory with a memory of her rewinding and pulling them out of an exploding building sometime earlier the same week.

"Thanks Chloe, but no gas leak this time. However, you," She pointed her finger at Sean instead, "are going to eat nothing, and tell me if there's any sickness, health condition, or practically anything that happened to result in people gagging to death on their own blood."

"Um… huh? I'm sorry?" The boy was so thoroughly, unabashedly and blatantly confused that Max almost felt sorry for him.

"Hey now, don't terrorize the boys, they have no experience living with a time-rewinding girlfriend after all." Chloe cut in. "Let's work this out gradually, yes? So, he's gonna choke to death on his own blood?"

Wordlessly, she nodded, but the affirmation was no longer needed when his nose started bleeding. "Okay, I see the problem now. How long do we have left?"

"I'm not sure, maybe 5 minutes?" She offered, but Chloe was quick to lift her wrist and re-sync their watches. "5 minutes and 43 seconds, counting down. Okay, you and me are gonna have an honest conversation with your throat, and I'll see if doctor Chloe can work any magic. As for you," she addressed her, "stay, watch over Daniel, wait for my diagnosis. Then with the knowledge, rewind far back, tell myself about it, and we'll see if we can work it from there, because 5 _fucking_ minutes is not gonna be enough to work up a miracle. Got it?"

"Got it." The girl had already maneuvered a terribly coughing Sean into their bathroom by the time she replied. She was thankful for the girl, who had taken up medical training in the short span of three days just to make herself more useful to whatever time-jumping situation they might end up into. Seeing her so calm and collected gave Max the strength she needed to perform her part of the work, because Daniel had started crying and simultaneously lifting objects around them again.

"I-I-Is is true th-that he's gonna d-d-die?" The boy stuttered over his inconsolable sobs, tears flooding down his face. The plate of pancakes cracked on the table after being rattled so hard, but she found herself less concerned with their chinaware than with her own structural integrity. "We can't let him die! We have to-

"Easy there, easy. Take a deep breath, in and out, in and out, we good here?" She brought to the forefront of her mind the same soothing words Chloe had whispered in her ears whenever she herself was having another panic attack. "Okay, you heard what she said, she's gonna take care of your brother, no biggie, don't you worry a thing, okay?"

"But… you said he died in the… other timeline?"

"That no longer matter, because I rewound it away, remember? I can time travel to whenever I want, there's no way your brother would choke under my watch." She spoke with such conviction that it almost fooled herself, but Daniel was apparently smarter than her.

"How can it not matter? I let my brother die! There's nothing we can do!" The all-too-familiar disintegration was palpable on her skin now, and if she didn't do something quick it would very soon erupt into another forced-rewind, sending her back to deal with all of this again.

"Hey, easy there, your brother's okay. We're gonna save him, trust me, okay? Between us, a time traveller and a telekinetic being, I'm quite certain saving your brother wouldn't be a problem, yes?"

"B-b-but-

"No buts, no take-backs, no do-overs. We can do this." Her words were final, and the boy spoke no more. Though the tension and suspense was still lingering in the air, quite literally, because Daniel hadn't got a grip on his emotion yet, and various cooking utensils were still floating under the effect of the invisible force.

There was little else they could do other than wait, and wait they did. Her watch informed her a good half amount of the time had already passed, but still no words from Chloe yet. The wait was torturous to her, mostly because of the phantom _disintegration_ snaking its way across her skin, but she knew what she was experiencing only matched a fraction of the fear radiating from the boy. He was frightened into a block of immovable stone, petrified by his own shock, and as they both sat through the longest 2 minutes of their lives – her life at least – she couldn't help but wonder what montrosities had the two boys been forced to endure, to grow so attached, so unnaturally fond of each other. Their shameless display of love to one another all but confirmed it; in the world that they came from, they were in constant danger, risk and threat, and if they only allowed intimacy to blossom during privacy, then it would mean a never ending wait, plenty of missed opportunities, and such remorse when something happened to either of them that just _couldn't_ be undone.

Because unlike her, they couldn't afford the luxuries of redoing anything the moment it went derailed.

No one could.

Chloe went rushing out of the room, conveniently snapping her out of her trance and grounding her back to harsh, relentless reality. Her face, though, was something akin to grave seriousness; the one any doctor would adapt before breaking the news to the unfortunate patient's family members. They shared a brief moment for eyes to meet eyes, silent words exchanged, and lips trembling lightly. They didn't need to make it verbal, the confirmation was all but written on her face, on the deadbeat silence suddenly shrooming the entire room, on those eyes that conveyed more than the simple language could possibly ever.

Max understood immediately, what it was like, to feel hopeless. Helpless. But not because of a past set in stone and invariable; not because of her and the time-bender's curse, but because of a missed opportunity, a life slipping away from one's fingers even when they'd tried their absolute best. And yet, they knew it was not their fault, because it was just something that _had_ to happen, something beyond their tampering or flimsy mortal comprehension. It was something too far gone to be really remediable in the first place, or in any place at all; it was another Arcadia Bay, already set in stone, only awaiting for its time to run dry, to fulfill the one role that destiny had assigned with it since the moment of its creation, to become the _inevitable_.

_He was gone_, she'd understood. _He was too far gone to bring back_, the look had spoken. And she understood.

But the boy _didn't_.

"Where… where's S-Sean?" He'd asked. And waited. And waited, until any answer was given, until the burning question was finally solved, and the last flicker of hope truly died down. But until then, he'd held back, whatever ounce of control over his power, he'd exercised them all, in waiting of the moment when his brother would be diagnosed as fine, perfectly healthy, and would be up and running anytime soon with a pill and a good night's rest.

But the boy was, in a sense, wiser than any of them had accredited him for. He understood the look, alas, he could not believe it, or accept it as truth. He just couldn't; the bond of family and blood forbade him to, and even had they not, he would not allow himself to. He wasn't even in denial; denial was something a person's mind would make up, an elaborate web of deception and lies, constructed into a labyrinth where the person would consensually let themselves be lost within, to be totally separated from the brutal truth, from the unwelcoming reality, from the _pain_. In his case, his was no ordinary human mind, and as such, denial wasn't even a choice, an option; there would only be accepting of the truth and live on with it haunting him eternally, or not accepting it at all.

"He's not, right? He's not. He's definitely not. There's no way he could, right? Right?" He couldn't bring himself to say it, the word, but the need for it was not necessary. They all understood what he meant, and in response to that was only silence; a silence so still that any slightest noise to break the peaceful tranquility would be considered a crime itself, committed against the impending will of nature, against the boy's dwindling hope, against something so sacred and pure even the very reality-bending powers they were given could not interfere with.

So instead, they kept silent. The need for breaking it had already outlived its own value, as the guttural sound emitting from the other room was all the response Daniel needed.

"Sean!" He'd roared, jumping from the chair and leaping over the table, eventhough he could just stand up and walk around it. He slammed into the open door and tumbled into the room eventhough he could've turned the knob and walked inside. And then, all they ever heard was crying, screaming and inconsolable sobbing; the boy had found his brother. Max didn't know the state he was in, or how horribly injured he was, but she knew there was not a thing she could've done.

So rather than following them inside, she allowed them the privacy of their last moment together. She took Chloe into her arms, and into her warm embrace, she felt the girl relaxing, ever so slowly, ever so subtly. The strain in her shoulders loosened, invisible knots untied, and she let out a huff of shaky breath. She returned the same sentiments, tightening her arms just the little bit that reminded her, reminded both of them, that they were still there for each other, that the heartbreaking farewell hadn't occurred to them yet, that whatever short time they still had left until their mortal existence extinguished, would be spent in the company of one another.

Chloe finally shuddered as the first drop of tears stained her shirt, turning into soft hiccups, and she found herself repeating the gesture soon after. There they were, lost in the other's embrace, temporary ignorant of the world's twisted, sadistic sense of humour. But little did she know, Max was as every little bit as negligent as she was ignorant, because she possessed the ability to prevent it all from happening.

She simply didn't have the _courage_ to.

It ashamed her greatly to admit, but she was reluctant to risk ruining everything again, to risk losing Chloe all over again, just for the sake of some strangers. Even if they were no longer strangers by that point; even if she could understand the raw agony and anguish they were going through by that point, of losing someone who you held dear and cherish more than your own life, the entire world, and the worlds of many others. She was being selfish, she had no illusion about it, but she couldn't bring herself to touch into the power, to undo the worst sin done to the brothers, even for the few extra seconds it would earn them until time would eventually force itself on her, time and time again, never once disturbing the perfect cycle.

So instead, she grabbed Chloe and cried into her shoulders, leaving the rest to the final moment kick-in as the familiar ripple of molecules ran across their entwined bodies.

* * *

"Daniel! Stop! What're you doing?" Sean roared, running into the cave, all sense of self-preservation thrown into the air, not because the exhaustion turned him reckless and without a care for his own wellbeing, but because he knew Daniel would never hurt him willingly. Though it was still a matter of debate, whether or not the boy was currently in a state of mind where it could even be considered "in control" or not. A backpack forcefully impacting with his face and sent him flying into a wall of the cave had proven the later beyond any shadow of a doubt.

"You kidnapped me!" In his hazy mind, Daniel's outraged cry registered faint, blurry and distant at best. He could feel the boy's wrath, but little else than that, as the blood trickling down the side of his head would suggest another concussion was forming, and this one most likely more severe than most. His brother went on, leaving little time for him to recover, though.

"You gagged me with that funny-smelling handkerchief, and drugged me! Then you tied my hands, and I could hear you threatening my brother!" He'd screamed. With every punctuation, another heavy rock flew at his assassinator, who weakly defended herself by the back of her arms. Considering the bloody mess of mambled flesh beyond any similarity to a limb, he would hazard a guess that her time remaining wasn't surplus anymore if Daniel kept going on at that rate. "You murdered him! Slit his throat, and made me watch!"

_Wait, what? Daniel remembered it?_

"You sick, evil woman! What have we ever done to you?" He yelled the full capacity of his 9-year-old lung, and the sound wouldn't have been that loud if he hadn't developed the worst of a concussion ever known to mankind inside his skull. Yet, despite the pain, he had no choice but to get moving; Daniel kept going at her would bring the entire cave down on their heads, effectively burying them under the combined weight of an entire mountain, which he was certain even this new-found source of power Daniel had couldn't lift by himself.

"You deserve to _die!_" He'd heard the final yell, and had panicked. A sickening crack of fractured bone, of dislocated joints, and he knew without looking that the woman's face was now vulnerable, exposed, bare; her final line of defense now unnaturally limp and unmoving against her ribs. He knew one last outburst was all that it would take before she would crumble, like a dry leaf trampled under the boot of man, so helpless and susceptible against a power much greater than itself. She would snap, and under the strength of none other than Daniel.

"Stop! Please, we can talk this out! Just… put her down!" He'd yelled over the deafening white static of his concussion, but in the real world his voice was silent, muted, no more a whisper dying on his lips. He tried again, and again, but all that met his effort was waste; sound, no matter how loudly amplified, could not travel through absolute vacuum of space, and he didn't even realize that until a shortness of breath hindered his steps.

Just an arm's reach in front of him, stood Daniel; hand still outreached, fingers still curled, and fury still raging on. His power pushed everything back with such an immense force that he was _levitating _a good metre over the ground, and Sean wondered how he could still be on his feet at that point. The remnants of the fire last night, the ash, the burnt charcoal, and the setting stones – all _decimated_ from existence, dissolving into thin air in front of him. He had half the presence of mind to suspect they were returned to their most fundamental of form – atoms, elements, too small to register in the human's optical perception, but not that it made it any different. Daniel was still going to murder the girl if he stopped pushing forward. "Daniel! Daniel, hear me out! Daniel, put her down, we'll deal with this together!"

In the vacuum of matter, gravity and its hold seemed to lost all effect, because he was _floating_ himself. It took the invisible pressure off his every steps, and he could move easier, if his feet had responded to his command. Instead, the pressure was internalized, pressed together and forcefully jammed into his lungs, as the lack of oxygen started taking its toll. "Daniel!"

But his call was no use, and the boy seemed not to have noticed him entirely, or at least too consumed by his blind rage to really acknowledge him. He needed to get up close, to lay his fingers on the boy, to establish a physical contact, and the massive pressure inside his chest didn't help. In fact, it only expanded, now bubbling up the inside of his throat and constricting his vocal cord, completely rendering any attempt at verbalizing his words futile and useless. It wasn't as if Daniel could hear him anyway.

Sean lost his footing at the last metre, the force bringing him down and onto his back, his skull impacting on hard ground in a mighty crack. He idly wondered whether that was a figment of his imagination, his skull actually cracking, or a combination of both produced by the concussion now pressing heavily on his eyelids. This was what it must feel like when a character had a concussion and the medics told them to stay awake; the pull of the sleep was all too tempting, but he knew relenting to it would be forfeiting any chance at waking up ever again. Daniel was still blaring accusations at the girl, now barely clinging to life with the skin of her face torn beyond recognition, her limps dismembered from her own body, and her blood splattering everywhere on the back wall of the cave behind them; he doubted they would be able to save her life even if Daniel loosened his grip, but he still needed to push on.

Crawling on hard, shaggy ground, his hoodie was torn, the graphic no longer an indistinct blur of colour. His arms and legs were filled with cuts, bruises and gashes, blood – his own blood – soaking wet his clothes and leaving a gory trail not unlike a multilated corpse being dragged on the ground. Upon the last inch, he reached out his hand to grab at Daniel's ankle, but the boy was floating too high above him; the tip of his finger missing its target by no more than the length of the hair on his back, but just the brush of skin contact couldn't bring Daniel back from his outrage anymore. He was already too far gone, his eyes dark and unrecognizable. He wasn't Daniel – his brother Daniel. Not anymore.

He was the living being that the power had chosen to embody, to incarnate, and to reign its control over.

He _was_ the power.

In the final burst of energy, he felt himself rippling, changing, turning, his every cell rattling in a frequency unnatural for any mortal being. He felt the desperation as his eyes watched the girl's neck snapped like a broken twig, the body thrown forcefully against the wall with an imaginary splurt – in actuality there was nothing but silence – before even the remains dissipated, _disintegrated_ right before his very eyes, into nothing. Then he looked back at Daniel who hadn't stopped screaming, at the ceiling where cracks began running its length, splitting the already uneven stone surface into tiny fractions. And he knew that crack went much deeper than surface level, that the cave would come down on their heads any moment, bringing the entire hill down in its wake.

He knew the power would survive, had no doubt about it. He knew himself wouldn't, but that was already a given when he'd realized the concussion was actually an internal hemorrhage when it bled from his ears and nose moments ago. Both of that, he realized he didn't care.

But he cared that Daniel wouldn't. His body was just that – a shell, not bound or attached by any invisible strings to the power. It could come, just like the incredible rewind that had saved his life on more than one occasions now, and similarly, it could leave without a second's hestitation. Daniel – whatever remained of him – would be crushed, the life wheezed out of him, and the power would leave him in an instance.

He knew he couldn't let that happen.

So, with the strength he no longer possessed, he lifted the sword the girl had dropped beside himself, its other-worldly material giving it resistance to the unbinding force of the disintegration already tearing his body apart. It wasn't intact, but it was still in one piece. Enough to serve its final purpose.

With the experience from a lifetime's worth of training, he grabbed the hilt, raised the instrument, and aimed. _Only one blow_, he'd whispered to himself, _only one blow and it would all be over._

But he couldn't do it. The devil's incarnate, was still the shape of his brother, the one person whom he loved, cherished and adored above all else. To drive the sword into its heart would be banishing it back to where it belonged, but also, his brother from his earthly vessel and back to the land of souls. _Back to their father_, he'd reasoned, but it still didn't relieve the invisible pressure holding his hand back.

Like the final straw, the idea occurred to him, shot through his muddy, sluggish mind and reached the forefront. It was impossibly clear, became the only point of focus his quickly bleeding strength could concentrate on. Raising the sword again, he followed the line of thought, giving up on rationality entirely and let the pure drive of instinct, of swordsmanship from a lifetime he didn't live take control.

He struck again, but this time hitting true to his target. He let out his last breath, not possessing the strength to see if his final moment of clarity had paid off, or if all he'd went through was for naught. It was with the hope that Daniel would finally come to his senses, would be shaken enough by the lost of his brother for him to regain control, to stop the madness and escape the crumbling lion's den while he still could – it was with the older brother's last whim, that Sean expired himself, with the sword straight through his beating heart.

Just when the last of his neurons were firing their last burst of signal, when he crinkled the corner of his lips with whatever strength remaining, even if only to express relief at seeing the small boy – the _real _Daniel – kneeling over his dying body, crying softly into his numb hand, when he was truly at peace knowing his sacrifice had saved his brother; the power kicked in.

But different from the previous two times, he now had an accompany. It wasn't really himself, no, but in a sense it was a version of him. What he could've been, had the circumstances been different, had his life unraveled in a different manner, had fate travelled on a different route. And as the two of them blended into one united entity within the unnatural flow of time, they shared lifetime that one hadn't ever lived, memories that one hadn't ever seen, and emotions that one hadn't ever felt.

Above it all, his love for Daniel remained an invariable constant through whichever lifetime, between the two already seen and endless more yet to be discovered. It glowed warmly in the background like a persistent light at the end of the tunnel, guiding him to the end of this ethereal, strange, but not entirely unwelcomed sensation.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Max entered the ethereal timezone of the rewind, the short moment when everything would play back in reverse in front of her eyes while her ears registered incomprehensible backward rubbish. She'd tried time and time again, to learn the backward language, to depict what others were saying, because while in reverse-time she was a ghost, unseen, unaffected and unheard, which would make for perfect espionage missions, but all efforts failed; the human ears were just too programmed to normal speech to take it in a whole new flow of time so foreign from their usual forward. Another wonder of the natural world, she'd mused, the ability to learn new languages were unlimited, and if she remembered correctly the current Guinness world record for most language spoken was a man fluent in 58 or something, and yet she could never force her ears to adapt to the backward speech, not even one word. As she got used to it, it grew less similar to language, but more into a white static instead; always rumbling in low, muted volume and yet always audible, just not coherent.

This time though, there was something… _different_. Explicit, even. It was far unlike any other rewinds, because this time, she almost felt the phantom presence of something, _someone_, accompanying her.

Usually, reverse time would be her alone time, ironically, a place to sort out her thoughts inside her jumbled mess of a mind, eventhough she knew she would forget everything again upon re-entering normal timeflow. Yet, it was the solitary that counted; she never wished to be too far – or too long depending on whether she was travelling with her power – away from Chloe, but when secured with the knowledge that outside her consciousness nothing else prevailed during reverse time, she was allowed the solace, even for just the short window of time that would end immediately the moment she opened her eyes again. Because in that temporary brief, she could truly let her guards down and be at ease, without constant paranoid fear of losing her into some sporadical and inexplicable occurrence, take the boy's arrival for an example. Because she knew, and even more than knew – she felt, that the reverse time was her creation, her manipulation, of the temporal mainstream. It would listen to her, simply because it was hers. It was the one place where she really had any ounce of control over the events transpiring around her – eventhough she knew she could not alter anything while in it, she knew she could _redo_ things after it ended – and that was the sublime majesty of reverse time, of being the only entity who could, and probably ever, have it to herself.

But the presence, or presences, had other ideas, it would seem. They kept bugging her during the reverse, flying in and out of her reach, just to aggravate her and turn the peace-loving girl into an irritable, cranky creature. She would extend her arm to try and grab them, touch them, but like the intangible presence that was her own consciousness, so was them, and she could no more touch them than they could apply direct contact with her. Though when her hand brushed across the flying sparks, she felt what was akin to… telepathy. She could not see their memories, or understood their emotions, or comprehend their very nature; what they were and what they stood for truly, if it wasn't all symbolism.

But there was something else she could grasp at. She could take a glimpse into their perspectives, and that was all it took for her to identify the person underneath. Their was a boy whose outlook on life was much grim, dark and despondent, and though he gave his valiant effort at keeping up the charade, he could not conceal the negativity of someone who had simply been betrayed, hurt and wounded too many a time to regain the ability to trust. But still within that same boy, she saw an artistic eye, an appreciation for beauty, and a desire to capture, to possess, to reign his dominance over those that he held dear, but not out of a malicious intent, but rather a protectiveness of someone who had little left to lose.

She knew it was Sean. But also, not just Sean, someone else as well. Someone… who was no less, but still entirely different from, _Sean_.

Then there were another girl who was pure, virtuous and saint; who had endured much pain and loss, but let none taint her optimism, not because she was too naïve to understand life, but because she understood it all too well to know if she doesn't make the best out of the moment, it would slip away for good. But within the same girl, she found a loyalty beyond common sense, all too blindly, and all too desperate, the same devotion someone would dedicate for their soulmate. Eventhough she knew it was blinding her, she couldn't bring herself to forfeit her allegiance or retract her fidelity, because without it she would be lost, floating adrift, without purpose, without a cause, eventhough she knew her current one was the wrong one.

She knew of the first Chloe the instance she brushed against the presence, because it was the girl she'd been searching so desperately for. But she didn't know of the second _Chloe_, even if put in another perspective, she could totally imagine the two swapping places.

In a sense, they were what they were because of circumstances, because of the toll of life, of responsibility; because love and loss shape one in the most fundamental of ways. But in another sense, they were who they were, something that rose above the ordinary flow of time, or space and every event that transpire between it, true to the nature of themselves regardless of whatever may come their way. It was all too confusing for her mere mortal presence to truly comprehend, and as the flow of reverse time trickled to an end, even with all the perspectives, she found herself not a clarity away from where she started.

But she was no mere mortal in her very own ability to enter reverse time, and as such she also learnt something.

She knew, in a way even she herself didn't know, that the two counterparts were just different perspectives, divergent in the angles of view, but still just various renditions from the same polyhedron. That whether they were pre-shaped or moldable, depended solely on the person's own being. And that to correctly understand the nature of it, one must consider looking from all perspectives, spinning at all angles, and put oneself objectively so as to remove the illusion of judgement or prejudice if one was to acquire the closest interpretation to the accurate original. She accepted, and questioned none of that, because it was truth.

But what she also knew, was that two different perspectives mustn't intermingle. Similar to how overlaying 2-dimensional sketches could lead to a faulty impression of the actual 3-dimensional object, if two separate awareness was to mix and unite, nothing good could come out of the very being themselves. It would only result in disaster, sooner or later. That it was something unredeemable, inevitable and unavoidable, not because she was incompetent at making changes to the timeline stick, but because that was simply how things worked. That there were things that even her reality-warping ability could not intervene, simply because that was just the way it was, had been, and forever would remain.

But that was the total extent of her short-lived knowledge. She knew not of the disaster already underway, that would face her the moment the peaceful tranquility of the reverse time came to an end. She also knew not that Chloe had remembered the life-long feud of a lifetime she had not lived; the same feud that would lead to many a regret later on, one transpiring very much sooner than she'd expected.

* * *

When she felt the familiar shudder travelling across her spine as she re-entered normal timeflow, she looked up to a reflection of herself in the mirror. Staring at her own eyes, she allowed the physical vibration to enter her mind as the tingling presence behind her crook of her neck; the power retreating, like she'd called, and rearranged her memories to prevent overlapping timelines that would do no good to her or the people around. The morning was young, and she had only rewound two times, she reminded herself. Before, she'd neglected to perform this tiny routine, excusing that it would be ridiculous to stare at one's reflection and mulled over which events had, hadn't, or would soon happen to them, as the timeline, according to her limited knowledge of it at the moment, was only singular, unique, unparallel. Soon, rewinds stacked up one after another, her memory – and also her sanity – was quick to be jumbled into a mess beyond comprehension. Learning the lesson, she'd rather take a minute to do it properly, than to give birth to another psychological demon; one Chloe-Arcadia Bay dilemma was enough to ruin her life, thank you very much. The short moment of peaceful tranquility was soon broken, however, by a sound very much resembling that of a person's gasp, and in all her experience, gasps of people right after a rewind was never, ever anything remotely good.

So it was with a hurried sprint, a short of breath, and a prepared mentality that she left the washroom into the dining area, when she saw a scene that, quite effectively, amped up her adrenaline flow into nothing short of a river as she registered the latest ordeal. Daniel was extending his arms, holding two people at a metre's length within them, and it didn't take long for those two faces to click into slot in her mind as Sean and Chloe, who were apparently very, _very_ pissed at each other.

"You murdered Max!" The girl had screamed, and for a moment she thought her ears had finally gone haywire from all the time-travelling pressure, but the similar confusion reflecting on Daniel's face let her know that yes, what she heard was indeed true and not a figment of her imagination.

"So you've finally remembered your own sins. How about you murdering our parents, if we're pushing blame?" The boy growled, a low, infuriated sound nothing akin to a human's sound. It might as well have been the sound of a true wolf, guttural, feral and vicious, raw with fresh hot and unadulterated anger. She felt a shudder raising goosebumbs on her spine; the intimidation she'd first felt was back, and it was in moment like these that she was reminded they were not some boys on a vacation trip, but warriors, who'd survived much worse and still come out on top because of the tenacity they possessed. Most likely they've taken lives way too plentiful to be kept track of, and it was beyond a doubt that they wouldn't hesitate to take a few more if it meant their survival, her and Chloe be damned.

"Sean? What're you talking about?" Daniel was teary-eyed by that point, but his older brother dismissed him with a flick of his hand, a gesture so rude she'd never seen him done to the boy before. Yet, instead of the explosive outburst she'd been expecting simply for being brushed off, the boy stepped back beside her, his lips pressed into a thin line, too terrified to utter a word in response, but his eyes glinted in sharp wariness, as if already witnessing his brother's rage many times before and knowing better about interfering. Wordlessly, she reached out to offer him comfort, but he flinched away from her touch, his power wavering just the slightest bit.

That was all it took for them to jump at each other.

Sean, with the agility rarely possessed of a true wolf, charged into her midriff and tackling them both to the ground. Chloe tried to gain purchase from the various objects around her, waving her hands blindly as they rolled, but could not grab the edge of the table in time to spring herself out of his clamp. With his knees, he pinned both her limbs above her head, leaving her face vulnerable to his assault, and from then he kept unleashing punch after punch, relentlessly snapping her face side by side with each vigorous impact. Max extended her arm, the heroine in her refusing to watch the girl get beaten without helping, but instead she found herself bound tightly in place by an invisible force, _Daniel's doing_, she realized. The boy was still beside her, but he had his eyes closed, either too afraid or too accustomed to the violent outburst taking place, and Max suspected the later with how unflinching he remained after each sickening crack rang out.

But the girl didn't remain down for long. Hooking a free leg around the dining table's leg, she gave it a hard yank, not enough to rip it off its support, but enough to empty the content down on the boy's unsuspecting head. He couldn't dodge in time, taking a plate directly over his skull, and the sound of shattering ceramics forced her to wince a little. Already counting on the distraction, Chloe freed an arm from under his weight, grab the fragments and repeatedly stabbed him in the other thigh, until he had to give up the pining hold to tend to his wounds. The girl deemed it was her turn to retaliate, as she performed an acrobatic back-flip from her lying position to a crouching one, and with the same shard of ceramic, pressed painfully into his exposed neck while the other arm held his head upright by the gruff of his hair. The shard was not shard enough to break skin by itself, but it printed red scarring lines on his neck just out of the pure strength the girl was extenuating, and he knew he would be on the losing end of the battle soon if it were to last any second longer.

Max saw the moment of hesitation in her inaction, the girl mulling over the first life she was really about to take, and that was all the time he needed to formulate an escape plan. Sweeping with his uninjured leg, he knocked her off-balance, losing purchase on the shard of broken plate, and with the speed of a panther pried it from her fingers. Now it was his turn to press the makeshift dagger to her neck, and he made the cut deliberately, without a moment's hesitation. Or at least he would've, had the nimble girl not held an actual cooking knife to his chest, effectively freezing their short struggle into sudden stillness, none daring to make the slightest move for fear of triggering the other into the deadly slip of a hand.

When they were still panting, cooling down from the all the brawling, laboured breathing filled the room, and with eyes still promising thousands of death threats to one another, they slowly untangled themselves from each other, limb by limb, until they were a comfortable distance away. As if complying to an unspoken aggreement, they both dropped their weapons at the same time, and that was when they finally acknowledged her or Daniel's presence in the room.

"Get out. This is between us." They'd said, in sync, and Daniel had wasted no time making himself scarce as he retreated into the safety of the bedroom. Max lingered for a moment longer, eyes brushing over their injuries, debating over whether it would be lethal or not, then deciding against it, she dug her heels into the ground and stood defiantly.

"You can't make me." She'd said, but Daniel left little over to choice when he pulled her away from the room with his all-powerful telekinesis, and like a rag doll dragged shamelessly across the room, she refused to budge an inch, until she was inside the room, the door closed, locked from the other side. The struggle started again, by the sound of various objects breaking and short gasps of breath, but Daniel was firm with his hold on the door.

"Why, why did they just go maniac on each other like that? What'd happened?" She'd questioned, not expecting any answer from the boy, but was once again surprised when he covered his face with his hands and started sobbing instead. "Hey, hey, easy there, calm down and tell me why in the world are they going at each other like wild beasts out there?"

The boy was barely containing himself, each sob wracking his body as it grew into tiny hiccups. "T-They both remembered, Max, events from the other t-timeline. One m-moment he was still him, my brother, but then they both gasped, and just... launched at each other. I tr-tried to keep them apart, Max, but... he was d-doing it again."

"Doing what? Daniel, you have to give me more than that, because I seriously have no clue what's happening again, and I'm tired of vague answers."

"The animal thing. He's gone crazy again, Max, and I still don't know how to snap him out of it this time!" He suddenly confessed, his crying ceased to be replaced with feverish rambling. "The last time was when we were captured, and they tortured me in front of him. They made him watch, Max, and he just became this… thing, where nothing mattered to him but bloodshed and suffering." He lifted Chloe's long pajama pants to reveal his feet, and Max had to physically restrain a gasp when only four healthy toes appeared on his left foot, the disfigured last one showing burn marks and sewn-together incision where the nail was supposed to be on any ordinary 9-year-old's foot. "He dislocated his own shoulders from the straps just to get free, Max, and with his bare hands he killed all of them, but not the merciful neck-snapping." His numb expression when he refered to breaking people's spines as merciful haunted her, but she bailed her fists and continued hearing him to the end. "He silenced them with a hand over their mouth, and then he used the torchblower to-to…

"It's okay, you don't have to relive that memory anymore. Just tell me," Max took him into her embrace, and he let her. "How did you snap him out of it the last time?"

But instead of the answer she was expecting, all she received was a soft shake. "I couldn't. He ch-chased down G-General Price for w-weeks, and I thought I've lost h-him. Until he returned, l-limping, with that s-scar on his face. It was a-already infected, and even the h-healers couldn't…" A violent tremble ran across her body at the notion of Chloe, in whatever timeline, being the culprit of such a crime, and just the mere thought replaced her own stubborn disbelief with terror. In another timeline, her sweet, caring Chloe was capable of such evil, such atrocity, and just the sound of the struggle raging on in the room next door was proof enough. She couldn't bring herself to avert her gaze from the maimed foot, another barbarity she didn't need to ask to know who was responsible for.

This time, as they leaned against each other, she allowed the terror to settle in. It was outright terrifying, to see the hardened soldiers after all the conditioning, but to hear of the process told in painstaking detail, it was beyond horror.

It was _traumatic_, and not just the mentally fucked-up-in-the-head she'd forced herself through. She had everything she could ever ask for, and yet she just had to take everything for granted with her ungrateful crap, while these boys went through such nightmarish monstrosities, and was helpless to do anything. They were forced to watch each other being _tortured_, to watch as the pain, terror and fear morphed their innocence into a madness forged by insurmountable agony, and watch as the very person they knew dear cripple away in front of their very own eyes, to be driven to insanity, consumed by vegeance, by helplessness, and by pain, into just another monster, bearing little difference to the ones that had given birth to it. In a way, it was the monster that created the monster, an endless cycle, unbreakable.

And above all of it, the sound of the struggle still raged on outside the tiny room they were nestled within. But it was not until she'd seen Chloe, just as fierce and savage as was the monster himself, meeting Sean's ravage blow-for-blow, that Max truly understood the boy's reluctant acceptance of the occurrence; knew what it felt like to see your beloved already gone, beyond the edge of returning, to be brutally slapped across the face when you try to step in, to not even bother to rewind or force-intervene, to learn the lesson that sometimes, it was less painful to let the numbness consume them, to become the monsters themselves, than to accept that they couldn't save their own dearest from themselves. For the first time, she truly understood the nature of the ghost inside her, that it was just another coping mechanism, and that as much as she despised it, to kill it would be to open herself to more pain, more suffering, more torment. She understood truly, how lucky she was to have it, and why would someone willingly wish it upon themselves, to carry the void and _become_ the void.

Because the void knew no feeling, no pain, no lost. It knew no love, no sharing or compassion, and henceforth wouldn't be so vulnerable, so _helpless_.

Before, the center of her void had been Chloe, the one immortalized idol she would worship, because Chloe was chaste, pure, and worthy of all the sacrifices she'd done in her name. In a way, she'd grown to become her sick obssession, her excuse to keep on transgressing all the barriers of her own morality. In a sense, she'd built a shrine around her, a temple dedicated only to the girl whom she would stop at nothing to salvage, even if that meant hurting everyone else selfishly, even if it was built from blood. And it was with such misdeeds, such felonies that she'd fed the void and allowed it to taint her purest of intention into her psychological instability. It was from the void that the demonic ghosts haunting her mental was born, and when she succumbed under the weight of her guilt, of her failure, of her questionable morality, she'd turned to the void for solace. She'd fed it with her negativity, completing the cycle, until it outgrown its purpose, until it became the worst of the ghosts, the one she'd mistaken for a sanctuary, a safe haven for whatever left of her to take refuge in, only to be devoured deeper into the abyss with no way out. She'd built the labyrinth to Chloe's purity, trapped herself within the perpetual darkness of a dead-end section, and pretended to be moving towards, while all she ever did was walking in circles, digging her own grave and putting her own fight to rest.

But now that Chloe's purity was no longer, the whole palace shook, shattered and crumbled, granting her a way out. It lent her ambition, taught her how to nourish her hope back from the brink of despair, and with it her chance at redemption, at undoing all the wrongs another her had done. It was her key back to freedom, to control, to salvation.

She couldn't blame Sean, nor could she stomach the sound of the person they cherished screaming out in pain in the next room. But she knew she had the ability to do something, anything at all, not to prevent it, but to undo part of it, however fragile and intangible that tiny flicker of hope was; it was hope nevertheless, resurfacing from the darkness of her mind after having been absent for so long. So she gathered all her strength, bit her lips to repress the tears overflowing her vision, and lifted the boy's face into her own.

"Tell me everything. Spare no details. Everything, from the beginning to the end, about your world, your messed-up reality, your parents, your Empress and her General, your fight, and everything. I don't care if it mattered absolute nothing now, just tell me, and tell me now." She spoke, but her voice strong, domineering and steady, not the wrecked mumble she'd thought it would come out as. With such determination she'd spoken that when the boy looked up, she saw mirrored in his own eyes the sparkle of hope, rekindling and regrowing, slowly but surely, into a courageous last fight. Where they would put everything on the line, take all necessary risks, jump at every opportunities, and stop at nothing until either their goals were met, or they died trying. They would go back and fix everything, either for better or worse; they would simply refuse to rest until the final timeline was settled, but not in the way destiny had dictated, circumstances had pushed or choices had chosen, but in the way that they will it to. In the way that they and their powers allowed them to, had they stopped fooling around and truly set their minds to the task.

In the way that only the time-bender and the world-shifter was capable of.

She didn't realize time had trickled into a full stop, that she'd accomplished the impossible task that was to bring someone into the plane of timelessness with her, to reign on unaffected by the frozen temporal activity surrounding them. She didn't notice the noise outside the room going abruptly silent, or the fact that they both had mortally injured themselves enough that, in their final moment, they couldn't mutter enough strength to call upon their beloved. She didn't remember the void threatening to merge as one with her consciousness, because in a sense she already had conquered it, when the pain had subdued and given way to grim determination. She felt no longer the grief that was pulling at her conscience barely moments ago, because she knew with an invariable certainty that it wouldn't be there in the final timeline, or it wouldn't be the final timeline at all. She knew only the blue spiral spreading around them, and the boy's chaotic force field separating them from reality's grip, as they began the journey back to the time and place it all began, both through his words and through the tingling power flowing between their connected hands.

What she also knew not, was that she would never return to the same reality she'd departed from. Nor did she knew their vortex, rifting across the space-time continuum, brought some extra company with them.

* * *

Sean awoke, early that morning, back to the smell of the grizzling fish skewered on a pike. He wasted no time dubious of the killer-given gift and eat it up in one go, mentally preparing for the string of events soon to follow after. He knew if Daniel remembered that time, then there would be no doubt he would remember this time; the boy would be awake and wherever he was in the original timeline at this point. He wondered if he could still access the power though, seeing that it was only triggered by extreme occurences, such as the anger for someone kidnapping them and threatening to kill their brother, which they had already succeeded in a timeline came undone.

_Yup_, definitely enough anger to arouse that mystical power, he decided. Putting out the fire, he ventured back to the memory he'd earned during the last rewind. Halfway across the globe right now was an alternate version of him, having breakfast with an alternate version of his brother, prepared by an alternate version of his inpromptu killer and the girl who was responsible for rewinding his ass back and saving his life for at least three times and still counting.

He sighed, rubbing at his temples, discarding the thought immediately. It hurt his brain enough to know that another _him_ existed, let alone… all that. It was too early in the morning to start thinking about that anyway. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him that he prefered his math lessons over this mind-fuckery any day, and he silently chastised himself for not appreciating these little mind-training sessions. He doubted taking thousands math classes a week could mentally prepare him for all this cross-dimensional shit, but still, the thought of pulling his textbook from his backpack and just settle down reading them over became too appealing to resist, especially knowing his timetable for the upcoming day: failed hunting, wetting his only pair of underwear, killed, rewound, and start over again.

_Fantastic_, he snorted in bittersweet irony, before making quick steps to the entrance of the cave, imaginarily texting Lyla to update her for the day. _Hey, guess who just got duplicated cross-dimensionally and is now on his way to being killed?_ _Your favourite runaway teen fugitive, of course!_

Seriously though, his Earthly-based life spiralling down non-stop into a pit without any way out? That he could handle, or at least comprehend. But even his otherworldly life down into the dump? The universe must seriously be out to get him or something, because there was no statistically possible way for everything that had happened to just pour down onto his head unprecedentedly, without not as much as a warning beforehand.

What he also didn't expect, however, was to bump into the familiar blue-hair upon leaving his cave.

Though he'd tried to repress the memories right upon re-entering normal timeline, whatever barrier he'd managed to establish was broken down at the mere sight of her. It all came rushing back, the night when it all happened, his dad putting up a courageous last fight, urging them to run. His mother's begging on her knees, sparing her children and let her take the blow instead. Their sudden apparition in the last moment, just when they were about to escape, and the dagger that sliced Daniel's cheek open.

He was no longer in control of himself when he tackled her to the ground, rolling with the extra momentum for several rounds. In his mind, only scenes replaying themselves in endless loops, intend on depriving him of the last of his humanity. Them on the run constantly for days, without food, shelter or medical care, him maltreating Daniel's wound without any disinfectant, and the boiling-high fever that ran on for days. When he started screaming, it was only a faint echo of Daniel's breathless gasp, when he was forced to cauterize the wound with a searing hot branding iron they stole from a nearby farm, without any anaesthetic or painkiller.

"Sean!" He'd heard the voice of his brother calling out for him, but he couldn't stop. Not the loop of memory, nor the brutal assault on the helpless woman on the ground under his arm. His vision saw only red, his ear registered only white static, and so hazy was his trance-like state that he didn't even realize she was tied by the wrists. Pinning her arm above her head, he'd closed his hand around her neck, and squeezed.

In his memory, he was reliving their torture sessions. His mature body soon grew resistant to the pain, they'd learnt. His scream quickly dwindled into silent glare, they'd realized. And his willingness to reveal intelligence was never anymore a spat in the face than the pain could be physical, they'd concluded. He was proud of himself, under the impression that they failed to break him, to pry any ounce of valuable intel from his tightly-sealed lips.

Oh, how horrified he was when they tried a whole new tactic, one involving Daniel.

The boy screamed his lungs out, until his voice gave under the abuse, until he was silenced by a hot iron rod shoved roughly down his throat. By that point, he could no longer distinguish his own voice from Daniel's agonized bellow, each ringing as loud and true in his memory as if it was a lifetime he'd gone through just yesterday and not a different reality entirely. He remembered the boy's hysterical begging for a quick, painless death, and how everytime he would be given a backhand, a bucket of boiling water splashed onto his face, before they would continue on regardless of his ear-shattering howl. He remembered being tied to a table opposite to Daniel's, being forced to endure his brother's torture, which unsurprisingly was worse than anything they put him through.

But he remembered the final day, the worst day. When the torture finally ended, to be replaced with the living nightmare, the rumoured hell among Namaria. He remembered, shedding tears for the first time, something he hadn't done not even in the night of their parents' murder. When he no longer could cling to magnamity any more than it had been merciful to him, and any last fight dissipated to allow the void to consume him whole, even if just to ease whatever pain it could and bring him closer to the end.

He remembered going savage, breaking his own shoulder to get free. He remembered turning into the beast he'd feared for so long, embracing the dark side that had always been a part of him. He remembered the soldier's scream when he put the torchblower to their ear, but rather than be disgusted with it, he felt only annoyance. He remembered slicing open their vocal cord just to continue without all the noisy distraction.

And above all, he remembered the one last enemy he couldn't get to in time, the one he let get away within the slip of his fingers. The one who came in on the final day and took charge, the one who broke him, broke both of them. A certain woman with blue dreadlocks, shoulder-length, the same one that drove a blade through his father's beating heart and slit his mother's throat open. The one that always stood behind the Caulfield witch herself, whispering words into her ears and manipulating the force of nature to her will.

He remembered General Price, now the pulp beaten to within an inch of her life under his feet.

"Stop!" He'd heard Daniel's cry, and an invisible force grabbing hold of his body, physically pulling him away from the woman and binding him to the ground a good metre away. He'd heard Daniel's footsteps, rushing over to check the girl's mangled body, feel her pulse, and panicked. Whether she was still alive or not escaped his knowledge, because the only thing that came next in his field of vision was darkness, pitch black and cold.

Though if he had clung on to consciousness for just a second longer, he would've seen a strong draft of wind burst forth from the boy's bailed fists. He would've seen it evolved into a temporal hurricane, enveloping them all in its powerful grasp, swallowing them into its Eye. And he would've seen it dissipate back into thin air a moment later, leaving not a single soul behind to bear witness to its destruction on the peaceful tranquility of the world they once knew as their own.

* * *

For any of you still reading, I sincerely thank you all! Hang in there guys! We're a third way along the ride now, and things are about to get rough real soon!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"It all started that night."

"Then that night is where we shall go." She said, and the sphere, as if having a mind of its own, heeded her command without further ado. It lifted itself from the free flow of reverse time, and the familiar ripple brushed over her skin as they forced their way into an entirely different realm of existence than the one she had originated from.

* * *

In the deadbeat silence of night, the Diaz manor stood tall and glorious. Its beautifully ornamented exterior reflective of its residents' status. Intricately shaped bushes and carefully cultivated hedges were to name merely a few of the luxuries that its beautifully trimmed garden possessed. Its yards ran for miles and miles, seemingly endless in all direction, expanding over three-forth the district of Gwenacci, encompassing its own church, market and school that were restricted only to the most wealthy of vendors and their children. But it was the castle itself that caught the jealous eyes of peasants, that solicited many wolf-whistles, many dellusional daydreams, and even more malevolent curses of the people whose daily ration weren't enough to feed a family of hungry offsprings.

Extending high above the top and breaching the clouds was the main tower, built in accordance to Valerian age architecture, with spiralling staircases from the outside, serpentine details adorning banister and each step of stair. Glass were framed around a wooden-based structure, proudly exhibiting hallways that ran deeper than the longest of rivers. And branching off to the sides were smaller corridors that led to each individualized section, with the family ignorantly asleep occupying the largest building in its centre, in the tallest room of the tower, above the watchman's observatory. Though they did not know that, by the time they went to sleep, the guard on duty that night had already been long out of commission, being made quick work of with only a poisoned cup of his favourite drink.

Under cover of darkness, two shadows sneaked across empty yard, feet light and nimble, without a sound on the hard gravel path. Whenever they traveled past an illuminating torch, they would distinguish it, submerging their entrance into pitch darkness even made more hard to discover with it being a night when the calendar struck the 36th of Pevraska, meaning the absence of both natural satellites of Namaria in the pitch dark sky. They made haste, soon entering the first set of double gate crossing through a trench, the first obstacle between them and the internal circle, where important people resided. Including the family target of their stealthy infiltration that night.

So, they had to cross the water, and with silence. Such a task would seem impossible with the gates closed, the bridge retracted, and the deep trench nearly a full yard across, running along the circle's perimeter leaving no entrance point. Yet, the obstacle was invisible to the master spy, or at least she heeded it no care; with a long run, she gathered momentum and made the jump, getting only midway across before her own speed lost her to the grip of gravity. But she got close enough to launch her sword at the strong cordage holding the gates up, and they released with a shriek, letting the bridge down for the hooded figure to cross with ease.

Her friend had already been devoured by jaws of hungry amphibian beasts left unfed intentionally, and the entire castle had been aware of her entrance just with the noise of the bridge lowering. Their infiltration had already failed, and any attempt at reinstating stealth so implausible that their chance of acquiring their target equated zero.

But none of that mattered to an invidual whose call the flow of time responded to, whose effect under time itself was illusional at best. Extending her sword by the unsheathed hilt, she nudged the timeflow back to reverse, with intent eyes watched for the spy's tentative jump, then released her hold of time. It snapped back into natural rhythm, the bridge redrawn behind her and the castle submerged into peaceful tranquility undisturbed. The girl was falling, again, but this time she reached out with her hand and grabbed the other end of the weapon that, in her perspective, had emerged out of nowhere. With a mighty heave, the hooded figure pulled her on board, and the two of them continued making their journey into the heart of the estate, not a single word exchanged.

* * *

"Whoa, never saw through the eyes of someone who can reverse time. Is this how it it feels like?" Daniel spoke from aside her, his voice muffled as his face was pressed into the weird magical bubble they were surrounded in. She knew her moment of emotional outburst had created it, and that travelling in it she could pass through the barriers of realities, if the foreign world around her was any indication. It also allowed someone to travel with her, as was evidence with the boy by her side, and that it provided them immunity to the overlaying flow of timelines as well as mortal ears and eyes, but other than that she knew little else. If right now the bubble decided to just pop and drop them some couple feet down to the ground, she wouldn't have any idea how to conjure the thing again. The boy nudged her side when she took too long to answer the question, forcing her back to reality, _well,_ _this_ _reality_, and away from her dark musing.

"Yeah, pretty much. But they seemed to have a much better control on the power than when I first started out. Are you sure this is the night when it all started?"

"It was, at least in my memory. I'm 6 by the time, I can't remember much other than the night of our parent's murder."

"Wait, this is the night when your parents are murdered?" She asked, shocked. Not from the knowledge that they were orphans, that much she'd figured out on her own, but from the boy's unfazed expression. Reliving your most painful memory with someone and taking them back to the very night when it happened, she didn't know if she had enough courage to if it was her in his place, let alone be so unaffected by it.

"Yeah. You didn't know?"

"No, how can I when nobody bothered to tell me? When you told Chloe I was passed out, remember?" Despite her best effort to conceal it, a pang of anger still bled into her accusation, so she took a deep breath to calm herself down. It didn't really work when her memory brought up front the unknown fate of the two madly struggling dearests they had left behind in their rush of power, and apprehension filled her as she recalled the tenacity with which they had fought. She couldn't help but blame the boy for evoking so much sympathy from her, eventhough she knew it was actually just her who got dramatic all over a few tears. "So, this is the night?" She asked instead, distracting herself, which failed spectacularly, as expected.

"Yeah, pretty much."

It took her a moment to connect the dots, but time froze an entire second once she had.

"Wait, these two intruders we've been watching… _they_'re your parents' murderers?"

"Shush! Something's happening." The boy scolded, ending the conversation abruptly, almost evading a confirmation, but he couldn't entirely hide his anguish from her; after living with the emotional wreck that was her own mental ghost for so long, she would recognize that undertone anywhere. She would've pushed for more, had she not realized that, true to his words, something was taking place in the darkness.

* * *

They encountered a platoon of guards patrolling, and almost instantly they were spotted. Nevertheless, the intruders kept pushing onwards, taking down the rushing men as they went. One was highly trained, fluent in the art of fighting, her steps nimble, her slash lethal, and her speed unrivaled, she had no difficulty fending off her own. But the other barely needed to fight; with a flick of her hand, she was gone, dissipated into thin air like the magical apparition that marked her reappearance soon after, but behind their turned backs. With the same hand that had touched into the power, she unsheathed the dagger and struck just where the guard would be a second later, almost as if she already knew where they would go and what they would do, and with such precision she'd struck that any unfortunate enough to be in her path faced a death so sudden that their mouth remained agape when they hit hard ground. Together, they took down the entire army of armed personnel, raising not a single ruckus in the process. The night was young, but they'd already advanced deep.

* * *

"Your defense is no match for them. They're too efficient." She'd accused, watching the person possessing the same power as hers, but truly putting it to good use. To be honest, she was a bit ashamed of never having been able to use it properly, because if their was a textbook for time-bender describing what to and not to do, she would definitely fall on the never category. Like, really, all she'd been up to was fumbling around, using different small talk topics and gather information, while all the time she could've done much, _much_ more, take the whole "bringing down entire army by self" as an exemplary instance.

"Yeah, they're good. They always win, no matter what we do. But now that I know they can rewind every failure away… yeah, I guess it's understandable."

"Guess having a time-rewinding enemy sucks, huh?" She said awkwardly, thinking of all the foes she'd faced, not excluding him and his brother. Eventhough they all had been actively trying to kill her or Chloe at some point, she couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for them. Having none of your success matter because the other can just rewind it away and ruin it from the beginning… _yeah, it's depressing as fuck_.

"Nah, not really. It just makes winning harder, 's all." He brushed aside, but Max noticed how the boy rubbed at the scar on his cheek when he thought she wasn't looking.

* * *

The two intruders reached the last obstacle, the very height of the tower by itself. Their target was asleep soundly in the tallest chamber, and the only way up is through the spiralling marble staircase that ran outside the tower. To take the direct path would be suicidal, as there would be no way out if they were to be spotted, and even the time master could not make the entire length of the stairs in time. Her power may be unlimited, but her stamina was, and the short struggle just moment ago may have seemed effortless, but she knew better of the exhaustion numbing the back of her mind. To take the path would be to risk the safety of their mission, something they could not afford.

But they were already so deep behind walls to back out again. In fact, they were close enough for discretion to expire its own value, and as such there would be no more barrier holding back her true potential.

Unlatching a leather satchel under her robe, the hooded figure retrieved a metallic device, one very much resembling a piece of technology. One far outdating any simple contraption even the wisest among them could invent, at least for the moment and at least a hundred more years to come. She knew that whatever ancient wizardry it possessed, it was far beyond her grasp, and she accepted that she would never truly comprehend its mechanics, not because she wasn't competent, but because technology was too far different from her own world of magic and witchcraft that the stark contrast simply forbade any mutual understanding.

But that did not matter, because she knew it would response to her command, just like how the flow of time would. She knew it was something special, like her, and as such it was capable of something she knew for a fact was beyond any world, magical or technological. And she knew that it would serve their purpose for now, that was all that mattered.

Raising the device to her eye, she looked through the viewfinder to see an entire smaller rendition of the tower before her. Then her fingers reached for the familiar feeling of a protruding knob, and pressed down on it.

_Snap_.

The device clicked, and quickly she returned it to her satchel. The other accomplice pressed against her side, hands tightening the hood around her neck. Together, they stepped back and awaited for the wrath of nature.

Soon enough, it came, the giant hurricane. It shook the tower, rattled every glass panel, and broke long sections of marble staircase. A fragment dropped to the ground, an inch away from crushing them into pulp, as if they knew exactly where it would drop to step just an inch aside. Clambering on the chunk of debris, the hooded figure reached out with her power, unraveled the storm back to non-existency, and the section of stair floated back to its peaceful position near the top before the storm had ripped it apart, bringing the two intruders along to their destination.

* * *

"Is that… my camera? Wait, I thought I left it on the porch? Hey, when you and your brother arrived, did you see my camera on the porch?" The forgotten piece of technology came to her mind when she saw the other person holding the out-of-place high-tech device, especially when the world around them was still built with wood and people were still fighting with medieval weapons. Heck, the boys were wearing _armor_ when they arrived, and that was a good 3 years from now if he was only 6 at the time.

"Huh? What's a camera? You mean that shiny thing that goes 'snap'? Nah, pretty sure we didn't see anything. And besides, she always had it with her for as long as I can remember. In fact, I've never seen her without it ever, almost as if it was the most precious thing in the world. But then again, she always rewound our memories away right after, so I didn't know it could create tornados at the time, but still. I always thought she was capable of flight or something, but never did I imagine that was how they reached the top." He said in awe, and she found herself mirroring the sentiment.

"Neither do I." She thought of the cursed instrument, of all the storms she herself had created whenever she took a shot to add to her collection, and then the knowledge that someone, with the same curse she had, was intentionally doing it, and was taking advantage out of it, turning the curse into another powerful tool to be at their disposal. The thought made her half want to admire their creativity, half other to vomit, but for the sake of their little time-space bubble, she held the bile back in her throat. "It's too destructive in their hand. We have to confiscate it."

"I agree."

Extending their arms, the two of them fumbled a while, before finally managed to get a good grip on their abnormality sphere, directing it to follow the two intruders.

* * *

They made the last set of stairs in absolute silence, leather boots absorbing any impact against marble surface and emitting no more noise than the sound of their laboured breathing. Their destination was right beyond the final set of doors, this one locked properly from the inside seeing as it was the last barrier between the royalty and the peasants. The hooded intruders tried to break it open with brute force, but it was too sturdy to give out under their combined weight. They tried wedging the door off its hinges through the tiny gap between the door and the ceiling, but their swords or daggers weren't slim enough to fit through, and so were their fingers.

But they had already prepared for this scenario. Pulling a small vial from her satchel, the girl popped open the cork with her teeth, before slipping a few drops on the door. It sizzled as the acidic solution ate through metal without difficulty, and in the next instance there were nothing between them and their resting target.

They would enter and make short work of them all, still oblivious in their sleep; that was their original plan. They would either slip a drop of poison onto their skin or slit their throat clean with her daggers, silencing them forever in their sleep. But now that she was so close to the target, there was this impulse throbbing incessantly under her heart. She was silent, unmoving for a moment as she tried to decipher what the strange sensation was, and noticing this the other person gave her a slight nudge, _move on_, it'd said. So she complied, her body moving on autopilot, because she herself was still too enveloped in the unfamiliar sentiment that she completely lost sight of their objective, even if only for a second over the fringe of the dissolved gates.

A second was all it took for her to realize something was horribly, horribly wrong. Because no way could it be this simple, as effortless, in oppose to the months they had meticulously planned down everything, even to the tiniest fraction of a second. They learnt every entrance and exit, every alternative route were any to be blocked, every guard's exact patrol duty or change of shift, and even with how prepared they were, she knew that there would be no way everything could go smoothly according to plan, without any a hindrance more than the most fundamental that they'd overcome already.

She knew it was a trap, but what puzzled her was how she had fell for it, despite being the one and only who could reverse time, who could remember exactly what would happen in the next second, minute, hour, or even days if she pushed it. But what escaped her knowledge, was how that very specific night, she was no longer the only time-bender across the broad world of Namaria.

* * *

"Are you certain we should do this?" Max'd asked, blatant apprehension in her voice, but Daniel took no offense to it. His plan was, honestly, pure insanity; to wake the family, gag their mouths to prevent any unwanted sound giving away their plan, then hide under the sheet where they used to be, and should have been. It was certainly risky, seeing as there was no extra window of time for her to rewind or him to respond once they were discovered, but in a sense it was brilliant in the very same way, because they were about to battle someone with the ability of time rewinding. Giving them but the slightest window of time to react would be condeeming them to their inevitable failure, he'd reasoned, and she couldn't argue to that, being taken out that very way many a time before.

It didn't do much to alleviate her anxiety, however. "I still think it's risky."

"Just wait until they get up close, then spring up and do that bubble thing like you did before, trap them inside it. I'll just use my power to strangle them until they're unconscious, and we'll be done; none of this would ever have to happen." He said as casually as if commenting on the weather, to which she couldn't help but shudder, realizing that this type of action, though new to her in her 18 years of normality, was nothing uncommon in his 9 years of constant fighting for his own life.

"But even if we can capture them, what would we do then? Kill them?" She asked, dreading the answer. She knew the boy who was barely half her age had killed plenty. But to deliberately hold someone down so he could snap their neck? Even her terrible monster hadn't pushed her that far, and honestly she didn't know if she even had the courage to do it when the time came.

"Just… capture them and put them under first, okay? I'll take care of the rest." They boy had dismissed, but she saw the dangerous flash of light glinting in his eyes, yearning for vengeance for his own family. He may still be young, but he knew of pain, of loss, and definitely of inflicting pain towards other. He may not possess the speed or strength of Sean, but he had his power, a power that can put mankind's greatest feat to shame, and that was what made him dangerous. He needed only slip his hand, and he could very easily take out an entire city state, including her in it, if her power couldn't intervene quick enough.

Although he hadn't been pushed entirely down the cliff like Sean or Chloe had, he was close. Tethering-on-the-edge close. He endured the same torture any grown man would go insane under, and he didn't even have the mature mindset of an adult yet. But most importantly, he didn't have his brother – his anchor – around, to nail him back to reality and establish control over his power. He was lost, alone, and scared, desperate for his brother back – not the beast turned savage at the sight of bloodshed, but his _real_ brother – and he would stop at nothing until then.

_Just like she used to be_, she realized with a shudder. He was only a dark thought away from the same void that would consume everything, like it did to her. And if it took a derranged, mental and lunatic Chloe to snap her out of it, she didn't know to what extent must she go to bring him back if he was to lose it.

Probably something to do with Sean, she reasoned. The boy _who she left behind to fight Chloe to death_, her mind recalled, and she stuffed it back to the box of silence, the term she had so endearly named the absence of the void. She hoped the both of them had tired of fighting and was tending to their wounds by this point, but how the mechanics of time worked across different realities, she didn't know. They could return to a million years from their departure, or just a second, or maybe even sometime _before_, if her power only worked in reverse. Though she tried hard to deny the possibility, she couldn't entirely force herself to drop the thought that perhaps, just perhaps, only hypothetically, they might not even be alive by this point.

But she couldn't return now. Didn't know how to and not planning on anyway, not until she'd resolved the problem with this reality first. Here, somebody needed her, and her power could do a lot more good here than back at the original mess of a timeline she had created. Perhaps, later, when the job here was done, she could take another go at Arcadia Bay now that she could bring someone along in her travel. Perhaps she could even make a difference, or perhaps not, but eitherway she wouldn't let the void take control of herself ever again. It had already been part of her life for so long that she never really did get around to cherish Chloe, whichever timeline she was from be damned, and she was determined to rectify that this time, as soon as all of this was over.

_Whoa_, what did she know. Now that the void was gone, her emotions and thoughts came with such clarity and objectivity that for once, she could truly _look_ at the world not through distortion lens but clear looking glass, and the view suddenly came back into focus after being fuzzy for so long. She only realized then how big a fraction of her life had the ghost took away from her, but now that it was banished entirely, perhaps she could start working on rebuilding what was lost instead. Hope, like the quivering flame that it was, was easy to distinguish, but was also quick to respawn from tiny spark of happiness, from where it would spread, given enough time. She needed only not to dump a cold bucket of depression over it, not until it grew strong enough not to go out like a light at least, and that she probably could handle.

_Let's just survive this ordeal first_, she resolved.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Sean awoke from the pain of his head being split in halves, only to regret horribly that he had ever decided to wake again. The pain, like a coiled beast waiting for the perfect chance to jump at its prey and held them under sharp claws relentlessly gripping into soft skin, assaulted his senses all at once; the deafening noise, the blinding light, the accursed tremors, and the terrible, terrible pain that was the combined effect of all that. He wanted to scream, to growl, even to weep, but when his mouth opened only silence came out.

In fact, he couldn't even command his charred lips to open on their own accord. Blaming it on the migraine wreaking havok on his head, he had decided to leave it be. At least for a whole minute later, until he arrived more fully at his senses, and the sensory nerves from around his mouth told him that they were firmly bound to an adhesive surface very much alike duct tape.

Of course, panic swarmed where the pain had retreated, and he shot upright from his half lying position. His hands were tied behind his back, which he didn't even notice until it had caused his dislocated shoulders quite the mild discomfort when he tried to push his spine upright, so he remained stuck in a half erected state, which wasn't all that terrible as it had seemed. That was, until he tried wriggling his fingers; the pain shot straight through his arms, into his hazy mind and brought in to the clear the burning question, _how did he even end up like this?_

Memory, as it would appear, came to one's recollection slower if they were having a migraine, and the more severe the trauma, the more sluggish his brain operated, seeing as it took a whole five minutes just for him to recall the latest events up to that point. Which really wasn't as lengthy as he'd assumed, consisting basically of waking up, going savage on the woman, then being forcefully slammed to the ground with Daniel's power, and going out of commission ever since. He didn't know how much time had passed between, but him now being tightly gagged, bound and suffering from the worst headache ever known to mankind gave an impression that it wasn't in the blink of an eye, and his vision just clearing out to reveal an otherworldy scene proved his point exactly.

In front of him stood a castle, and a _real_ one, not even remotely anything close to those fictional ones that were so theatrically potrayed on TV. It was huge, no, more likely _gigantic, collosal, and fucking enormous. _It reached higher than the clouds itself, extended broader than his own peripheral vision allowed for observation in one glance, so he had to turn his head a good perpendicular angle just to scan his eyes over its entire exterior. Its perimeter stretched wide side to side, and no doubt spanned even wider in area behind those sturdy fortress wall. Upon first sight, he knew that it belonged to someone with quite the prestige to match, and the wealth capable of justifying such tremendous property without bankrupting themselves and their entire lineage of descendants.

He didn't realize he wasn't alone in his silent musing, though. Not until a boy squirmed beside him, alerting him of his own presence, whose identity he didn't even recognize upon first glimpse. Not until he had looked up at him through the darkness, and his messy raven hair cascaded down his forehead, covering one of his black, large eyes, and he saw his own reflection staring into the other.

It was Daniel, also tightly bound and gagged, and just coming to his senses after whatever drug they were given had expired itself. He winced a little, most likely from the pain he knew he no longer suffered in solitude, and he felt guilty of enjoying the fact that, for once, the universe decided to hurt someone else aside from him, even if it was Daniel.

_Wait…_

Daniel, as in his _brother_ Daniel?

"Mhrgh!" He'd exclaimed, overjoyed at seeing the boy that the piece of duct tape firmly secured on his mouth was temporary forgotten, hence the muffled shout. The boy flinched back from the loud noise, his own piece of tape moving up and down as if he was muttering something underneath, which Sean had no doubt was curses directed at him and his thunderous volume. The curse of a concussion; no matter how silent the real world was, your brain just registered everything as heavy punk rock blaring at maximum volume an inch from your ears, and he had to supress a chuckle at how similarly they both responded upon regaining common sense.

The boy squirmed a little before giving up on trying to free himself, but seeing him like that gave Sean another idea. He twisted his entire upper body, endured all the pain of sprained joints being moved purposefully against their natural periphery of movement, until a sickening pop rang out true and loud in the midst of midnight darkness. He grunted at the pain, but somehow it wasn't as excruciating as he'd pictured, almost as if his body had got used to the extremity eventhough he knew it was the first time he had ever tried something like that. His left arm now slung rigid and motionless beside him, twisted in an angle that propped his hand up and away from his body at about half-an-arm's length, but backwards, and that was all he needed.

Daniel was freaked out at first, seeing the monstrosity that he had been attempting, but when he realized he was actively trying to get out and not going crazy trying to hurt himself he had quieted his own disagreement to inaudible mumur. At least he had tried to keep down his whining, until his arm popped and the boy practically screamed his throat out despite having his lips firmly taped to each other. He tossed and turned, unable to stay still, which only made his plan all the while harder, seeing as the boy's tied hands were now shaking violently, and there was no way he could verbally communicate with the boy to tell him to keep still and turn around.

Still, in the end, he'd managed; whomever incarcerated them had bound their ankles together, but forgot the thighs altogether, and he could still bend his knees if he pushed hard enough. So it was with the crook of his curled legs that he had, to put it bluntly, pinned Daniel's head down, rolled him over and pressed the entire weight of his lower body on top of the boy's feeble attempt to sit back up. In that manner had he forcefully yanked away the piece of tape adorning the younger Diaz's wrists, rendering him free with quite a muted yelp of mostly surprise than actual pain. As anticipated, Daniel had freed his own mouth next, just so that he could undo the bound on his ankles while torturing his ears and leave him waiting in that cramped position if just for a minute longer.

"That was so not cool, man. It hurt like hell, I think you broke a finger there or something. I'm definitely going to get bruises all over my neck where you gripped me with your legs, that's for sure. Geez, you could've at least told me to turn around before you did that; I was tied, not paralyzed you know." He grouched, popping some kinks on his neck for extra measure, but the sound of joints releasing tension rang loud and clear told him he wasn't exaggerating much, that perhaps, just perhaps, he had applied a _little_ more force than necessary.

"Mhrgh!" He growled back, telling the boy to stop worrying about tearing his own trousers and start working on undoing his bound instead. He certainly took his sweet time undoing his legs even just to antagonize him, which he refused to admit that worked amazingly well. He might as well be frothing by the time the boy got to his mouth, having deliberately chosen to free his legs first and leave his hands tied, because he was acting up as a brat again.

_Oh, who was he kidding. _Playing irritable, too-cool-to-be-bothered teenager all he wanted; he loved the boy too much to actually harbour any abhorrence towards the little gremlin. Tied, captured and lost though they were, at least they were together this time, and he would be damn if he let Daniel out of his sight ever, _ever_ again.

That said, he didn't expect the rip-off to be _that_ painful, especially more so when it effectively fulfilled the work of a sharp razor and plucked his stubble clean off his unshaven chin.

"Ouch! Dude, a word of warning next time, please?" He said in mocked politement, but by the look on his face he might as well swallow the boy whole by that point.

"Hey, at least you saw that coming. Imagined being pinned under fat legs and have the tape wrenched from your hands bringing some skin with it." The 9-year-old replied curtly, and he couldn't find a half-decent argument to come back at that. Though the behaviour was barely unexpected; he was just recently drugged and had just had the first concussion of his life, after all. "That headache, did you feel it too?"

"Yeah, I think somebody drugged us." He concluded, fingers running over the smooth skin of his wrist, sore and tentative to the touch.

"It was exactly like when I woke up in the cave after that woman drugged me with the weird-smelling handkerchief. So yeah, I think it's the same thing."

Daniel refering to Chloe as "that woman" confirmed his suspicion. The boy didn't remember anything from their _otherselves_, most likely because he didn't have his soul ripped from his body in that power outburst in the cave. Somehow, dying in that last rewind evoked memory from this strange reality where he knew the assassin – _Chloe_ – came from, and eventhough he didn't know that by the time, his sacrifice had saved Daniel. The colour of pride bled into his silent monologue; he had saved the boy from the destruction brought about by his own power, and by doing so he had protected the boy from the memories of a lifetime of pain, torment and loss.

_Good_. He intended to keep it that way for as long as he can, just like the truth about their father's demise, if only to preserve whatever left of the boy's innocence as their circumstances would allow for. Watching someone you love being killed in front of you while you were helpless to watch was already traumatic enough – this Sean can relate to all too well – and if the pain of seeing them being tortured was something he can spare his little brother who had been through so much already from, he would in a heartbeat, without any regret. He knew the horrible consequences of such a pain and its everlasting effect on someone, from the example of his alternate self, and from _Daniel_. Through glimpses of the foreign memory, he saw the _other_ Daniel, still very much his brother, but not even anything close; he was more mature, more understanding, but also much, much more dangerous.

He saw himself, his _other_ self, rushing into battle with a sword and the boy by his side, them two against thousands, manybe even millions. And in the end of such an epic battle, he saw them emerging victorious, without a wound. Around them, mangled corpses of casualties piled under their feet. He knew he slashed many because of the crimson blood adorning his armor and sword. He knew he had trained hard to become a master of the art, and that he was more than competent to hold off on his own against incoming hordes of relentless enemies.

But he wasn't dellusional. He knew by himself, he couldn't take out more than 10 men without killing himself in the process, let alone an entire armada. He knew he was responsible for about a fraction of it, maybe even a quarter, at his best, if he was really pushing his strength that day.

But he knew the rest, lying motionless on the cold hard ground, eyes still open and mouth agape, without a single drop of blood leaking from their intact body, was _Daniel_'s doing.

"Hey, do you… remember anything?" He just had to ask to be certain, not escaping the shudder running up his spines at the dark thought.

"You mean… the other time, before time turned back? Yeah, I do." He evaded, and his mind blared with alarm. _Did he remember?_

"What exactly do you remember?" He pushed, not relenting his intense gaze into the boy's eyes.

So he sighed, giving in to his brother's inquiry. "I remember being kidnapped the first night, then the drug kept me out of it for most of the time. Then came the next morning, when I woke up inside that cave, where…" He sobbed, and Sean immediately understood what he had been trying to elude. So he took the boy into his arms, told him not to continue, but the floodgate was already wide open and there was no holding back the water flow.

"It was horrible, Sean, watching you… and I couldn't do a thing! I couldn't save you, or get to you in time, even with this power of mine… I'm useless, Sean, I let you died!" The whimper grew into an incomprehensible mess of words, but he no longer needed to hear anything. The boy was scared, and that was all it took for the alpha wolf in him to rise over and take control. Sean pressed himself against Daniel's cheek, feeling the warm streak of tears from his eyes, and he couldn't mutter any condolescence because his own eyes were watery at the reminder of the horrible experience. Still, he snaked an arm around the small of his back and rubbed soothing circles on the soft fabric of his shirt, the other hand ruffling in his raven hair, and he could feel tiny hands gripping the hoodie on his back just as tightly in response. "There was nothing you could do, _enano_. Neither could I. We were both helpless at the moment."

"But I have this power! I should've at least been able to do something, anything! Instead, I let you die, bleed out to death." He had said, and Sean knew not what to do to console his brother other than to press them harder against each other, enveloping him inside his arms and shelter him from all the pain, if it was possible.

But if the terror of hearing his brother blaming himself was already thought to be intolerable, then the next whimper, barely louder than a breathless whisper, yet somehow so full of agony, pain and remorse, was what truly frightened him, rattling his core and haunting him for days to come.

"I'm a murderer, Sean. I murdered my own brother."

Sean had to untangle their limbs to push him away, even for just an inch, to look into that soulful eyes of his. Eyes that were haunted, conveying his deepest fear into the trusty arms of his brother, admitting of a sin the judge of his conscience had accused himself of, and those eyes were staring into the victim, begging for forgiveness. Begging to be hated, to be blamed, to be despised, not because he hated himself, but because the guilt was consuming him, devouring him whole and hurting him so bad he couldn't utter another word until Sean had said something, anything, either to dissipate that guilt entirely or to pile more fuel into that burning flame.

It broke his heart, seeing his brother so… _broken_. But worst of all, knowing it was partly his fault, for being so helpless, for heeding his warning no care, for rushing blindly into that cave, for killing the Empress even when she had surrendered, behind _Daniel_'s turned back. It was his fault that his brother was blaming himself, and he didn't know how to admit fault, to alleviate the torment on the innocent soul and carry the burden on his own sinful shoulders instead.

"Daniel, you didn't kill anyone. It was Chloe who struck the blow, and you haven't discovered your power by the time, not yet. But if anything, know this; what had happened was not your fault, not by a long shot. In fact, if anyone was to deserve it, then it could only be me."

The boy looked up, blinked his teary eyes in confusion, and seeing the clear reflection of himself inside those eyes reminded himself of the monster he had become to hurt his brother like that. "How can it be your fault? You didn't do anything to her! She was a murderer! She kidnapped me!" He bellowed his tiny lungs out, not accepting of what his brother was insinuating at.

He knew he had a choice; either to tell the truth, or to hide it forever. He was at a crossroads, and side-by-side the paths layed obscure, leaving him no other option than to choose, to walk on untreaded territory and unveil the mist of foreboding future as he went. For better or for worse still as of yet unknown, but he knew there would be no backtracking, no do-over, no turn-around, that whatever he chose was final, and it shall remained final for as long as the length of time itself, forever affecting Daniel in ways he couldn't truly comprehend yet, but knew beyond a doubt that would be anything but positive.

On the one hand, he would force Daniel to live with his own guilt for the rest of his life, thinking he had killed his brother by his own inaction, and the ghost would only grow bigger until it would consume the child's innocence; instead of being the same carefree 9-year-old, he would become the accused, the assailant of an imaginary crime he had committed, and he would forever be cursed with the illusion that he had only himself to blame.

But on the other hand, telling him everything would grant him the same ghost that had been haunting him, opening an access for the monster to reach his brother. He was blessed with ignorance of everything they had gone through in the other lifetime, safety from the trauma, pain and loss, but the moment he revealed even the slightest bit of truth, he would be lifting every barriers he had thrived so hard to establish, to preserve and protect the boy's innocence. He would be swarmed with guilt even greater than his current predicament, and if he so chose to, Sean could only have himself to blame if the boy became what he'd feared the most, the monster of his own unmaking.

Both were far from anything desirable, but it was essential for him to make the choice if they were to move on, because life would stop and wait for no one. If he continued to dwindle on for too long, fate would have its own twisted way of making everything worse; he'd learnt that by one of the memories of the _other_, and though it wasn't as vibrant as having lived through it himself, the phantom of the pain was enough to let him know that not to choose was something out of the question entirely, the worst track possible of the all three presented.

There was no other way out of this endless labyrinth of loss, pain and drama. He had to make his choice, and soon, because Daniel was already sobbing again in his chest, tiny hands gripping so tight at the fabric of his shirt that his bailed fists were white from the lack of blood circulation. He put his hand on the boy's face, lifted teary eyes to meet his own gaze and braced himself as he was about to do something he couldn't take back.

"She was a murderer, Daniel, but her actions were born out of the hatred she harboured for me, for my own misdeed. And if there was anyone to be blamed for it, never would it be you. Because it would be me who had secured my own fate when I took the life of her dearest. I was the murderer, Daniel, not you."

The boy met his eyes with his own, his face an enigma of incomprehensible thoughts, but Sean knew him too well to be fooled by the act. He saw under the masquerade to his brother, his own blood, and there he could see the concealed shock, the hidden disbelief, but also, the desperate hope. Even he himself might not have known it, but the eyes of the older brother always knew; part of the boy, though unwillingly, though unconsciously, was hoping for a way out of the abysmal of guilt, of self-blame, craving for the reassurance that no, it wasn't him who condemmed his brother to a fate of such monstrosity, wasn't him who had killed his brother by not doing anything, that he was innocent, saint, pure, and not a monster with destructive ability, born to bring forward the end of days, to bring the anti-genesis closer to them all. And just by the sight of that sparkle of hope, he knew whatever pain awaiting them at the end of the route he had chosen, it would still be the right choice. He knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that he had made the _right_ choice in choosing to tell the truth.

And so, he confessed everything, holding nothing back. The truth, the impulses, the _monster_, the other lifetime. He confessed, knowing he was doing more bad than good, but not knowing anything else to do.

"It all started on that moonless night, in an alternative reality much different from our own, known as the magical world of Namaria."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"The world where magic resides not in fairytales or nightime fables, but in the air, in every vial of concocted potion, in every herb found within the heart of nature, in every cauldron of a boiling batch of medicine, under the healing touch of every healers exhauting themselves day by day to cure the people."

"It sounds so… peaceful. I wanna live there."

"Sure you would, insatiable runt. You know what they say, _the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence._ But our ancestors who certainly hadn't been to Namaria most definitely would have to take that back, because quite literally, the grass there is always light-blue, with only the very slightest shade of green."

"Whoa. Weird."

"Nah, you said exactly the same thing when you hear of our world and its green grass, _enano_."

"What do you mean, 'I said'?"

"Patient, little wolf. We are getting there soon enough."

"Can you please, _please_ just skip to the good part already?" Daniel whined, and Sean had to bite back a chuckle.

In his memory, whenever their father would gather them around for one last bedtime story, it would always be the same one. A non-magical tale of a realm called _Arcadia_, where magic barely existed, and even then only in the untrained hands of simple individuals. Then came Daniel's impatient rush for him to get to the climax, where he never actually reached, that in time Sean grew out of the naïvety of believing that there really _was_ a climax to the peaceful tale. Then another chuckle, this time unrestrained, because he thought of all the complicated conflicts within mankind's history – his own kind's history, he reminded himself, not to let the memory of the _other_ intermingle with himself – and how retelling them would've effectively put them to sleep just like every history lesson he ever had in high school.

"Hey, what're you laughing at?"

"Not you, I promise. Anyway, where were we?"

"The _good_ part." Daniel stressed, making a valiant effort to push them towards the action, eliciting a short chuckle from him.

"Alright, enano, as you wish. The good part we are then."

"Yay!" He yelped in victorious triumph, and this time they both laughed at his childish antics.

"Alright, settle down." He patted the spot beside him, and the boy scurried over to comply, lying down with his head on his lap, and unconsciously he found himself reaching down to ruffle the raven black hair. "It was a moonless night in Namaria…"

* * *

"Max? Why are you suddenly so hesitant now? Did you just came back from another rewind?" She heard the voice of Chloe from under the matress, and couldn't help the shudder that followed. So what Daniel had told him really was true, that there was another Chloe in his world, except that she wasn't Chloe, or at least the same Chloe that she had known. Her voice was cold, emotionless, as if the crime she was just about to commit wasn't disturbing her in anyway, and it frightened her. Because it was probably true, in a sense; she had probably done much, much worse, or more precisely _was going to_, in Daniel's trembling narrative.

She wasn't Chloe, she had to remind herself. She was General Price, the evil counterpart of Chloe, the source of all wrongdoings done to the boys, and she had to be disarmed if they were to finish what they had set out to. She mustn't waver in her act, because unlike her, she wouldn't hesitate to end her life, and very possibly the life of the 9-year-old, the moment they were discovered. If they were to succeed, then they must act quicker, faster, without a moment's hesitation. They couldn't afford any slip-up, not when they were so close already.

Willing herself to drop all sentimentality, Max hid the next shudder that ran across her spine when she heard her own voice answered.

"No, but… something's wrong. We have to abort. Now." Her voice confirmed her worst dread.

So it really _was_ her under the hood that they had been observing all the time. The time-rewinding power kind of already gave it away, but she still couldn't believe until she had heard with her own ears, her very voice, emanating from the other end of the room, just as emotionless and cold as the evil Chloe.

The evil Max, time-rewinding her way into the castle in the middle of the night to murder an entire family but only succeed with half of it. The evil Max that had caused so much pain and torment on the two boys that caused them to go crazy at the mere sight of her, to be willing to kill her right upon their first meeting, just because she bore so many a resemblance to this vile being.

The same evil Max whose voice was eerily similar to her own, but not because of the same texture, the same thickness, the same pitch. But because of a phantom ghost of a void echoing in that voice, that somehow, she could picture herself turning into this very woman, had the void not been closed, had it consumed the last of her entirely before she could find herself again.

Before she had snapped out of it just in time.

It was strangely poetic, the same monster that she'd created, who would ruin the boys' lives, unintentionally but still nonetheless leading them to an entirely different reality, where they would find and save another version of herself from becoming the same monster in the first place. Their very own dual existence was a paradox of its own, let alone under the same reality, the same moment, the same _room_. And perhaps that was that had allowed them to sense the presence of one another, their own paradoxical abnormality, the very abomination of their own making.

"Chloe! Mission abort! Now!" The _other_ had been the one to turn tails and run this time, intimidated by the presence of a time-bender much more experienced than her, who had already accomplished her life-long wish of crossing between barriers of realities while she was still struggling to collect the ingredients. She knew she was no match to the other yet, so she had run this time.

But she wasn't giving up on her fight or surrendering the battle, no, far from it. She was barely putting it on hold for a while later, for her to prepare herself and grow stronger. _Then_, when she was ready, she would come back in her own time and settle the score for their re-match. She might have lost a point right now, but that wouldn't matter in the end, because she was to win the final grand, and that was what really mattered.

So it was with that silent promise exchanged between them that she had run back into the cover of darkness, and that short moment was all it took for her to be gone; as was the way with time-benders and their gifts. So when Daniel sprung from his bed and ran out to the dissolved door, all he saw within eye vision was thin air, and a darkness so absolute it concealed everything beyond an arm's reach away from him. He had fussed, and cursed, and yelled, but there was little he could do. The girls were already long gone, trail lost in the wind, and the odds of finding a time-bender was below zero. They would have to wait for her to return, and when asked how she knew so certainly, she had replied, with a grim undertone foreign to even the boy who had been through much:

"Because we have unfinished business to attend to."

* * *

"So… they ran?" Asked Daniel, now hiding under the sleeve of his hoodie, terrified of the fairytale turned tragic drama.

"Yes, ran they did. But not before the Empress had left a scar on his face, one to mark him as the outran, so that she could come back for him later. Because no one, _no one_, ever escape the Empress." With his finger, he drew a line across the boy's face, feeling the goosebumbs rising wherever his skin brushed past.

"Stop!" He admonished, slapping the hand away. "I don't like this story. It's too scary. Can you tell me something else, happier? I'm tired."

Sean knew he really wasn't, just scared, but when he muffled the last words into the fabric of his shirt, he couldn't disobey. "Okay. What do you want to hear then?"

"The two drifting wolves, the story you kept on telling me every night." He said, averting his gaze to the ground when Sean smiled a toothy grin.

"Oh yeah? I thought you said you were sick of me repeating it over and over? Something about… me being lame, if my memory serves me right?" He teased, earning a few playful punches from his brother.

"Shut up! It's lame, true, but… the other story you told me… it's dark. I need something to take it off my mind." He admitted, turning over to look at Sean in the eyes, unblinking in that begging look of his. _How could he possibly say no to that?_

"Alright then, get off me. I'm tired too y'know? Go find another cushion; your human pillow wants to sleep too." He pushed the boy away playfully before laying back, his arms propped under his head to substitute the lack of a pillow, and beside him he saw Daniel copying his posture.

"I hate lying like this; my hands fell asleep while I'm sleeping, and they ache whenever I wake up." He moaned, but still closed his eyes, in preparation for his favourite bedtime story that would send him into sleep like every other time.

"Come one, man. You think the wolves have pillows to rest on? Nah, they sleep on hard rocks, and that is where they are most comfortable with." Receiving no response from Daniel, he continued. "There were three of them all, the father, and the two sons. Together, they made a happy pack…"

Soon, the boy's breath evened out, and Sean knew he was already deep asleep. He would have gone to sleep himself right away, but the memories of the _other_ had a suggestion, and after all that they've been through, he realized perhaps it wasn't that bad an idea after all.

So he rolled over, very tenderly so as not to arouse the boy from his slumber, and placed a chaste kiss on his forehead, eliciting a chuckle from him. "_Buona notte, enano_. Sleep tight."

Then he rolled back to his side of the hay, content and ready to give in to the heavy weight of his own sleep tugging at the boundary of his own consciousness, a small hand grabbed his own, tugging at him to roll back. It was Daniel, a hand still propped under his own head, eyelids fluttering close to shut but not totally yet as it stared dreamily at him.

"Where'd that came from?" His sleepy voice had asked, and Sean chuckled, caught.

"Nowhere. Just… sleep, okay? You're too nosy for your own good." He'd wrinkled up his nose in a fake-offended impression he knew the boy wouldn't be wide awake enough to notice, and honestly so was him. So he let his eyelids fluttered shut, relenting to the heavy pull of gravity.

"Whatever. I love you too. _Buona notte,_ _Sean_." He'd said, and that was final. Neither of them could resist the temptation of sleep any longer to feel the warmth spreading under their hearts, or to register the tiny crinkles on the corners of their lips as they smiled in their sleep, enjoying whatever sanctuary a sweet dream could offer from their already too harsh and tiresome reality.

The moonless night drew on, while they themselves, each lost in the fantasy world of their own deepest desires, never letting go of the other's hand.

* * *

"What do we do now?" Daniel'd asked, in the same crazed state he had been in since the intruders slipped from his fingers, and if her inability to conjure up another time bubble was to have any benefit, then it would be to trap them in the spacious room just a bit longer, just to let him pace around a bit, just to release some of the tension collected inside him, because she really could not picture him pacing in their less-than-spacious time bubble, at least not without turning her into a children's flesh-eating monster first.

"How am I supposed to know? She had this weird connection with me, and then we kind of knew right the instance she had stepped foot into this room." She'd grumbled, for the umpteenth times over the duration of the last 20 minutes, but she couldn't help it. He had every right to be mad, considering it was _his_ parents' murderers he had let loose when they were just within the tip of his fingers, but the pure amount of stress he radiated was enough to fill her with disappointment, though not as much on her part – because after all, how the _fuck_ was she supposed to know they could sense each other in close proximity? – if anything even wearing thin from annoyance of his childish antics. _He's only 9,_ she had reminded herself, but the excuse was getting old fast and she wasn't one with a limitless patience.

"I can't believe we let them get away. They were-

"So close, yadda yadda, you're done yet? Instead of brooding around for the last 20 minutes you could've made yourself useful and _shut the goddamn hell up_ because unlike you, I'm trying to concentrate on getting us out of here!" She snapped, but without any real animosity, just mostly irritation and pent-up frustration. Though her words might have been a little too rough, she realized a second too late, and when she opened her mouth to apologize he had already beaten her to it.

"Sorry, I'm just… pissed, I guess? Seeing them so close, and yet failing to do the one thing I've been fantasizing of doing almost my whole life… But I get it, I shouldn't have bothered you anyway, it's not like it's your problem, and all this time I've been dragging you along with me without your consent, being all kinds of ungrateful brat about it…" He rambled, averting his gaze away from her, and she sighed. _That_ was unexpected, and definitely not what she meant, but she knew it was his insecurity speaking.

So she stood up from the bed, walked to him where he was standing beside the coloured-glass window, and put a hand on his shoulder, promptly making as much noise as she could while approaching to give him the time and space to back away if he didn't feel comfortable. Somehow, the fact that he'd remained rooted where he was and tolerated her touch, but still flinching when their skin made contact, made her feel like she was the unwanted nosy heroine-turned-psychiatrist, and that if she suddenly developed the gift of telepathy she would hear him screaming at her to get lost in a hundred different languages. But she stomached all it and put it aside, because currently it was him who needed the support, and she may not be able to go back to their timeline – at least until she could somehow conjure another time bubble anyway – to grab him a Sean, she could practice the latino accent she'd been working on for so long.

"So, _enano_ – that's what he called you as a term of endearment, right?" She started as casually as possible, but the wince flashing across his face told her she did not succeed in bypassing any of his shields, if anything only caused him to raise a few more in alarm.

"Yeah, but please don't go around calling me that, especially if you don't know what it mean. It's embarassing as heck, and the only person whom I can really allow to call me that is probably still in his savage craze, and there's nothing I can do for him now. I'm a pretty bad brother, aren't I?" He murmured, his usual chirpy voice uncharacteristically low and quiet. Seeing him in the moment of vulnerability reminded her so much of Chloe whenever she had to put up with one of her moody fits, and the thought brought to mind a renewed surge of admiration for the blue-haired punk.

"Hey now, look at me. Your brother is safe back home, because if we can travel across realities in bubbles, I think I speak common sense when I say it works for time-travel as well. After all, we're 3 years into the past from your perspective of this timeline, aren't we?" She brought up logic and rationaility to appeal to his supposedly 9-year-old simplicity, but apparently the boy had a mentality twice more complicated than her own.

"What good would that do when now you can't conjure up another bubble? We're as good as trapped, and to me that meant another 3 years of living through hell. Our best bet right now is the storm that her camera created, because that was the thing that had brought us to your place in the first time around, and like you said before, she's gone, without a trace. We can't track her, find her, search for her… just, nothing. We're doomed." He explained to her as if trying to break a complex math problem down into smaller, digestible sections for a retarded fellow student, offending her a little. But she didn't have time to act on it before the second verse truly registered in her mind.

"Wait… you meant the first time around you were stuck into a tornado and spat out of our world?" She asked, incredulously, the problem that had been puzzling her perplexed mind this whole time solved as simply as a snap of the finger.

"Yeah, but when we told Chloe – _your _Chloe – she said there were no weather forecast for any storm in the region in at least another month, so we'd assumed that the tornado was pretty much one-sided from our reality." He replied, looking at her with the look of pity, and once again she told herself to set up a schedule later on to just sit down in their time bubble and float in reverse time while they seriously, seriously have a talk about everything she'd missed since that _stupid_ 10-minute-nap-turned-18-hour-sleep.

_Of course there would be no fucking storm in the region, _because she already rewound it away. Apparently, not before the two estranged visitors had been spat somewhere on the sand, and understandably her simple rewind couldn't rip open a hole in the fabric of time-space continuum to throw them back to where they belonged. Hence, they were stuck in her reality, their memories of the storm upon arrival rewound away, and her and Chloe's tropical house just conveniently happened to be within walking distance.

"Okay, now we seriously, _seriously_ need to get that camera." She concluded, shook with the knowledge that her seemingly harmless collection of post-disaster nature scenaries and the accompanying storm that she had so promptly neglected was actually a breach through realities, and they needed only to be sucked inside to end up an entire world away from their home.

"Wait, how did you get there again? Did Max – _this _Max – snapped a picture and created a storm while fighting with you?" _Fuck the schedule_. The talk was too important to procastinate any longer.

"Nah, we pretty much beat her already. It was a successful ambush, one really cool, but she was strange, towards the end. We were just rushing into her castle to see her and General Price alone, and usually it would mean getting our asses – oops, sorry, - butts handed to us. But she didn't do anything, nothing at all, just sat motionless on her throne and let Sean disarm General Price easily. Then she stepped down from the dais, we all thought she was going to end us right then, but to our surprise, to offer her wrists in surrender." She kept silent, listening intently, and taking that as his cue he continued. "When we tied her up, Sean had told me to apprehend Price – I mean Chloe – away, mostly because she was tricky and only my power could truly contain her, take all the times Sean had slipped her for evidence, but we were barely a few stairs down from the throne room when I realized Sean wasn't following, neither was the Empress. Of course, realizing something was wrong, I rushed back up there in an instance, but Chloe beat me to it, and when I arrived, there was this huge-ass hurricane in the middle of the room sucking everything in it. Before I even knew it I was already waking up on a sandy beach, with Sean lying a few metres from me, and the both of them nowhere in sight." He finished his tale, leaving her mouth wide agape.

"Do you remember when Chloe remembered? Events from this timeline, I mean." Seeing his confused nod, she continued frantically, the words racing from her mouth. "That must mean the _other_ Chloe was still alive somewhere, because in the last rewind I felt this… strange presence surrounding me. There were two Seans, presumably one yours and one original from my timeline, but there was also two Chloes, and I recognized mine instant. The other-

"Must be _her_." He concluded, arriving at the same conclusion as her. "The storm must have dropped people from random locations, because we searched the beach and found no sight of her."

"Then it might very well be that she was still stuck somewhere within our timeline." Max said finally, exhaling the big breath she had been holding on for so long. The puzzling mechanics of all the bizzare realities-crossing had been solved, and they were one step closer to returning home. The boy looked similarly as jovial at the chance of another do-over, but in a moment of clarity distraught struck both the giddiness off their collective faces.

"She can be causing many trouble back home." She said first, worry snaking through her own steady voice, a serpentine with fear as its venom, now already spreading through her veins and paralyzing muscles wherever it passed.

"I'm sure of that. She was the best spy of Burian, and whenever she infiltrated Egor, it wasn't until she'd left with much useful information that we would even begin to realize it had been stolen." He matched her concern in tone and volume, and despite the foreign names, she understood what he meant. Chloe – her Chloe – had always been excellent at snooping around, even if it was to sneak away and buy her birthday presents in the middle of the night, but she never could catch her in action. Just imagined all that nimble movements, light footsteps and sharp tactical mind put to espionage purposes, and goosebumbs covered the back of her neck. She could bring down nations, wage wars across continents, and conquered the world in a week at best, while they were here, estranged an entire reality away and helpless to do anything to stop her.

The boy seemed to realize her horror running cold on her face, because he tried to reassure her in that forced-nonchalance manner of dismissal, succeeding only in evoking even more anxiety from her. "But don't worry too much, she only listened to the Empress herself and responded to no one else's command. With the Empress still gone, I'm sure she wouldn't pull something that big on her own."

"But the Empress might still be somewhere in my timeline, and those two could reconciliate at any time. Not to mention she was also capable of time-rewind." She brought the problem back up, and this time he couldn't say anything to relieve her agitation.

This time, silence filled the night as they let the grave threat sank in. They could be uprooting her world by this time, and there was not a single thing they could do to prevent it.

"Not necessarily." A thought shot through her murky mind, and in the brief rush of clarity, she pieced together a plan that, if executed carefully enough, could be their tickets out of this world.

"Huh?" The boy asked, bewilderment shooting his brows to hairline, so she spoke quickly, as if afraid that were she to hesitate a second longer, the words would be taken away from her lips.

"We don't need to wait for them to resurface. Their biggest enemy is one of the countries you've just mentioned, right? Ergo was it?"

"Egor." He corrected, completely enthralled in her line of thinking.

"There. You have the knowledge of the future, we know what would happen in this timeline, and our anticipation runs all the way 3 years later. In the meantime, if we can just twist that knowledge to our advantage, we can help Egor grow into a nation too strong that its power threatened the Empress' goal of world domination, and she would have to resurface again to deal with the threat. With the fight as a distraction, we can divert her from our true target and go for the camera. Once we had it, we only need to take another shot, and the storm would be our way back to the other reality, from where I can rewind without difficulty." She went through the whole plan in one go, still short of breath by the time she'd finished.

"I dunno, seems like a far shot…" His expression was one of mixed sentiments, not enough for her plan to work.

"Come on, just think about it. I've said it before, and I'm gonna say it again now; between us, a time traveller and a telekinetic being, I'm quite certain this won't even be difficult for us." _There, her last straw_. It was a low blow, but she needed the push; if the same line had worked when she had to console him from the loss of his brother, then there would be no reason why it couldn't work now.

"Yeah, I guess you do have a point there. Maybe we really can do this, huh?" The faintest ghost of a smile danced on his lips, but his eyes spoke volume when it glittered with the same sparkle of hope that had brought them here the first place.

Sending a short prayer to God, she grabbed hold of his hands and brought out her own hope, thinking of the day when this would finally be all over and she could be back with Chloe again in their tropical getaway house, but with one multiversal-threat less. Just as she had expected, blue spiral and invisible force field began surrounding them, until a second later they were cramped back inside the tiny, uncomfortable sphere of magical bubbles they had been in when they crossed the barriers for the first time.

"Whoa, didn't see that coming." The boy commented, earning a chuckle from herself.

"I figured it emerged the first time around from our hopeful mental, so I gave it a shot. You seriously didn't think I was that patient, right? Like, for crying out loud, 3 years, really?" She raised the question, her own lips beaming, proud of her own handiwork.

"Hey, I really thought you were serious for a moment back there, but honestly though? I think I prefer this much more." He made motion to lean back against the bubble, but was more stuck in a somewhat upright position with how confined the sphere was for an adult and a child when the area count barely could fit a big dog, let alone any human at all. Nonetheless, they managed, and she wouldn't have their time-jumping sphere any other way.

"Keep up the positive thoughts next time, _dwarf_, or you can wait the 3 years out instead." She flashed him a toothy grin, waiting for it to settle in.

Just a second later exactly like how she had anticipated, he exclaimed, awestruck. "Hey! So you _do_ understand what it meant, after all."

"Well, literature is my favourite subject, but I don't just mean English. Now, where to?"

"Let me see…" He trailed off, and he could see his cogs turning through furrowed brows as he put his 9-year-old brain to work. "A week from now, by the docks, please."

"By all means, lead the way. It takes two to maneuver through time and space, remember?"

"Aye aye, captain!"

Their sphere disappeared in a pop of displaced air rushing to fill its void, returning the silence back to the night as it made its way to another time, another location. The family had just woken up from their short drug-induced nap, all shades of confused flashed on their faces. They went back to bed, retaining absolutely nothing of the incident just taken place before.

Through that night, they slept peacefully, with no more intruders attempting to take their lives. And as morning came, they were informed of last night's intrusion, of the small ruckus going down in their blissfully ignorant life. What they weren't inform, was that they were lucky to have survived the night intact, the only damage being their property and their men, and not themselves.

Away in a sphere of time and space, drifting aimlessly in the plane of the in-between, was a young boy dozing off to a rest he'd been lacking for days, oblivious of the scar disappearing off his cheek, wiped away by the flow of time itself.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

As morning shone its way through darkness of night and spread warm sunrays dancing on the tip of roofs, Sean was awoken from the most satifying slumber he ever had, contributing partly to the tranquilizer they had been intoxicated with the night before. With Daniel still snoring senseless by his side, he tenderly unlatched their interlocked fingers, a bit surprised that neither of them had broken the contact through the night, and scrambled to his feet as lightly as he could. The boy turned and whined a bit at the loss of warmth, but didn't seem to be otherwise bothered by his brother's departure, so Sean was free to go.

His first destination was, without a doubt, the window outlooking the giant castle he had seen the last night, and like the previous endeavour, he was not even close to disappointed with the view.

Namaria had always been a place of such breathtaking beauty that Sean couldn't imagine ever being anywhere else his entire life, or at least adoration and love for his world in their shared memories told him the_ other_ couldn't. Its magic ran even in the air, in the very brimming life force of nature, charming mortal eyes into getting lost within these blue-green shade of flora. Say all they want; no one could deny the fact that the sight of the early sun showering white rays on curling vines and glittering dews of the long night's condensation was a wondrous feast of the eyes, granted by God only to those with the appreciation of the view, the leisure of time and the peace of mind.

They were much alike, him and the _other_; always prefering the early dawn of day, but could simply not bring themselves to get up the extra 5-minute's early to welcome it. They both had a thing for art, as glimpses of him carving delicate details into blocks of wood would suggest. The work was messy, sloppy and unpracticed, but he knew the other enjoyed the mere time spent working hard on turning a clump of figureless matter into actual sculpture, the sentiments not exactly different from his pride whenever he accomplished a sketch. And the uncanny similarity, was no matter how poor of a job he'd actually done, either Daniel would always comment on it being the coolest thing he'd ever seen, and either of them couldn't help but feel ridiculously giddy over it like a loyal canine being praised after it retrieved the stick.

But since long, the work had evolved into something more than just a stress-relief pastime or an extra set of skill. It had become passion, no less intense or profound as his own capacity for love, and much, much more earnest than his entire social life altogether. He was always living inside of himself, making good use of his mental space to entertain his dull mind, and never did he really find the interest to spike up a conversation anyway. It wasn't even his introvert behaviour; he knew many with actual anxieties who reached out more often than himself; it was just simply him, to the brutal honesty of his eccentricity, but still something as true to him as was his own nature. And now that he had another perspective on life to view from, his assumption was just restrengthened once again, that Sean Diaz, whichever reality he came from, would never be part of the crowd. That he had easily accepted long ago, upon first picking up the sketchbook his father had bought for him, upon first letting himself be lost within rough lines of charcoal pencil and letting his mind roam free at its own will. To _him_, it was upon picking up a shard of pencil to inscribe blocky initials, upon sitting down on a tree stump and carving an image into its rough bark.

And to either of them, it was okay. They did not have the constant need to be surrounded by others, and solitary had always been the way of their lives.

Though Daniel was an entirely different case. His Daniel had been a naughty gremlin since he was born, and never once in the 9 years of his life that Sean had seen him content with just sitting around doodling nonsense. He was always one to go out and enjoy the day, while he was secluded under the shadow of the porch, and watching him from afar Sean felt something closer than it could ever get to envy. The boy was always carefree, more so than he himself was by that age, and definitely more than him as the 7-year older. While he was always melancholic and moody, irritable with even the slightest of frustration, the boy was energetic and active, never one to keep a feud for longer than a day or two. The two of them were as different as chalk and cheese, so much that their father sometimes wondered out loud if they were made of the same genetic makeup, but they all knew there was no place for doubt, not when their outer appearance matched one another so perfectly. They'd both inherited the most from their father, the skin, the hair and even the eyes, but there was always something distinct inside him that resembled _Karen_ more than he had cared to give her credit for.

_She'd disowned them when she left_, he'd declared, and it was final. He had stamped the lid over and sealed the box, before throwing it away entirely and promised to himself never to even spare her a thought again, because she didn't _deserve_ it. No mother would abandon their own children to the hands of a hard-earned mechanic, forcing him to raise them both by his very bare hands. He wouldn't have any mother like that, he'd determined, and since then he'd thought of her as no one but his genetic donor, even less significant than a delivery boy who had at least fulfilled their job keeping them updated on daily press release. The moment she walked out on them, she had also torn apart his heart as well as the last bond holding them together. She was gone, and that was it, no more to the story than there was metallic elements in water.

But then again, as accurate as that statement was, it couldn't really be applied to reality, as their own drinking water was already diffused with many types of mineral, and the purity of water could only reach as high as the exact temperature of its boiling point would allow inside an artificial environment of a laboratory, both impractical and unnecessary. He might force himself to abhor the woman all he wanted to, but he could not change the boy's mind. Under all the gruff layers he had worn to protect himself from the cruelty of her abandonment, he knew deep down he would always be the 7-year-old who had awoken each night to the muffled sound of arguments raising from their dad's bedroom. The boy who had so recklessly cut his own fingers fumbling around with sharp objects, eliciting a firm reprimand and a soft kiss to the forehead when she'd applied a band-aid to his bleeding wound. The boy who had cried on his first day to school, prompting her through his act of tears and careful-timing fits to take his hand into hers and walking him to school by herself, while the other 6-year-olds looked from the window of the school bus, jealousy apparent in their eyes.

Above all, he would always be the boy who had cried and begged for his mother to stay, and in his desperate last attempt had unleashed the biggest fit ever, even audible to their neighbors who were sleeping in the comfort of their own walls a good few yards away. The boy who had howled at the moon with sharp shrieks of his meaningless sob in the darkness of the night, at his mother's shrinking form, at his father's strong arms holding him back from running after her, at his own helplessness to keep her with them, and at the sorrow reflected by an entity inside him, that he had yet to know was his symbolism creature of the feral wilderness.

His wolf, more than the metaphorical sense he had always refered to, was something as true, corporeal and tangible as the blood rushing through his veins. It was the inner beast he always had to conceal for the sake of himself and his dearests, because like its namesake, it was any bit as carnal and predatory as a real creature of the wilderness would be to anyone beyond its immediate pack, anyone it considered not _family_.

It had awoken that night out of the agony, anguish and heartbreak, resurrected from a fading line of blood with the loss of a fellow pack member, a _family_, only to fell dormant again until long, long later, when another loss of family aroused it from slumber, when it finally took over for good, bringing them away from the edge of civilization back to primordial ways that bore much more familiarity to itself. He himself would never be as bold and daring enough to bring them both on a roadtrip to an aimless drift on the road, but the animal within him, frightened enough by the stone thrown from the hands of man, could be arousen with its natural instincts, to resist the smell of roasted meat offered on outreached hands to turn tails and slither back to the safety that the woods provided. To go back to the ways of its ancestors, and the ancestors before that, living their life on the run, up against the never-ending opposition from the harsh law of survival battling for their own place in the wild, and at all times within the confinement of their own pack.

Because Daniel would always be bigger a priority than anything else to him; that wasn't even a conscious thought, but an unspoken law inscribed on his skin, inherited through generations of evolution, and forever branded at the forefront of his mind as the utmost important task of protecting the smallest, the weakest, and the youngest. It wasn't even his choice; the love of the older brother had already settled that within the first few days, he was quick to learn, and that lesson he could never forget. That Daniel was, would be, and always would remain, his biggest concern, joy and love. The center of his fugitive life, one might even say.

But he wouldn't object to that, not now, not after learning of his _other _self and the true extend of what he was capable of. Because knowing that, they could keep away from him, from them, and their territory. Were they to trespass, he could not hold on to the beast for long before its overwhelming urge became one with he himself as the feeble person, and that would be his breaking point, his journey of no-returning, to a destination called too-far-gone.

He knew his obssession with keeping the boy safe tethered dangerously on the edge of paranoia and abnormality, but the beast wouldn't be conquered until its drive were met, and he himself could not force the instinct back down after it had spiralled too much out of control. He had lost so much of his family and his life that the beast simply wouldn't concede, not even for another inch of its territory, and whatever remained inside of its grasp it would cling on to fiercely, fight for viciously, and fend off as ferally as it could. It was protective not because it was greedy, but because the world was unforgiving, and it was only too eager to take the blow until it just had to return bite-for-bite, growl-for-growl, and blow-for-blow.

He knew he never should have allowed his mind the freedom to think, to brood and to get lost within his musing like he had just so arduously snapped out of, but stuck in the middle of a foreign reality, there really wasn't much Sean could've done, not until Daniel would wake up, at least. But then another thought hit him, and he realized moments like these were all the reason why he had taken up such a time-consuming and mind-numbing pastime of drawing; the picture was still perfectly framed across transparent window, and if he could just get a grip on some paper and a pen-

"Looking for this?" The voice of someone had startled him into an accidental yelp, but fortunately Daniel wasn't a light-sleeper, as his rest remained undisturbed. The stranger came from a backdoor from behind them totally escaped his peripheral vision, and it wasn't until he had swiveled around on his heels that he'd recognized her blue hair, gathered into a messy low ponytail that cascaded to shoulder-length. By the time he had put a name to her all-too-familiar face, she had already stopped short in her advance, an arm reaching out hesitantly, open palm offering what he was completely not expecting as opposed to the weapon he'd pictured: a book.

"What is this thing supposed to mean? What evil schemes are you plotting this time?" He asked first, wary of her facial expression, paying attention to even the slightest twitch of a muscle to read her intentions underneath this friendly masquerade. He marvelled over the amount of control he had mustered over such a short time, seeing as he still hadn't jumped at her upon realization of who she was, and likewise she could read the same sentiments off her face mirroring his own.

"Seriously? Dude, you don't get to beat people within an inch of their life and then ask them that when they came back with a peace offering. Where's your manner? Like, is that how the education system had become these days? Kids." She sighed, wiggling the proffered items on her hand as if trying to make them more appealing to his eyes, but her eyes remained trailed to his hands, he noticed.

"I lost control the last time, but even now I am barely restrained. With just a wrong move, and I will apply fatal measurements-

"Oh, come on! Seriously? I thought you had enough of the whole tumbling around and beating me to death, but clearly someone is more adept at holding grudges than me myself. Whoa, I'm impressed." The woman fake-gasped, but Sean could not let his guard waver for a second. With a quick swipe, he took the book from her hands.

To realize, it wasn't so much a book as it was a notebook, and one with its cover printed in various vibrant colours, another certainty that it couldn't have been made with Namaria's outdated method of black-and-white printing. The lines of words printed on the front page was in a language he did not understand, but instantly knew was not from Namaria. It was a notebook from his own reality, he'd recognized, and the words registered in his mind after some difficulty, as he recalled Lyla showing her some Asian alphabetical characters, this one very much alike the language "Vietnamese".

"How did you-

"Get the notebook from the other timeline? I always kept one under layers of clothing at all times, thank God for Max's habbit of stuttering over words whenever she rewound and was in a rush, but anyway, I figured you could do with something to blow off some steam." She replied, nonchalant, and was almost walking away again when his hand shot out to hold hers at the wrist.

She had refered to the time-rewinding girl as Max, not the Empress, and her hair wasn't braided into dreadlocks; that much told him what he needed to know. But just to be sure, he had to ask a final question.

"Are you Chloe Price?" He had hidden the underlying question well, but the _other_ Chloe would instantly see through it and call him out on not addressing her properly by her ranks.

"What kind of a question is that? Who else can I be?" She'd replied, her body tense at being grabbed by surprise, but the tension in his own body had already been undone.

"You are not General Price, but _Chloe_, the original one from my timeline." It was a statement, but the way he had said it made it more like an accusation. He was breathless and his reply rushed, but in his hazy mind events were starting to piece together again.

She raised her brow at his question, eyes incredulous. "What do you mean your timeline-

But she never finished her own question, freezing mid-sentence when she noticed something was amiss. Giving him a second look over before slapping a hand over her mouth to prevent a gasp threatening to slip out, she came to the same conclusion herself.

"Oh my god, the scar isn't there, how could I not notice that? Stupid Chloe, stupid, stupid Chloe. You aren't _him_-him, you're _him_, the boy all over the news; you're the one from Seattle, isn't it?"

_Great, _the first Chloe he could stand to be in the same room with without going savage, and their first impression was of his endless scepticism. The second, as it would seem, was of a boy who murdered a cop, and Sean sighed, mentally bracing himself for another vivid retelling of the story for someone else.

He didn't brace himself for Daniel waking up that exact moment to see their hands intertwined and coming to a ridiculous conclusion of himself, though.

"Yuck! After you everything you've done to each other and you still could hold hands? What, am I like, the only person here who hasn't gone so desperate to put common sense aside?" He stormed off, leaving two very confused people staring at each other for a whole minute, until he scrambled to his feet on hot pursuit of the boy and she doubled over in breathless hysteria as she laughed her own head off, ridiculed by the misunderstanding and the boy's account of their so-called "relationship".

"Man, this Sean and Daniel is much, much more fun than the other." She swiped her tears of laughter into the sleeve of her shirt and sat cross-legged, watching the family drama unfold before her eyes as if she wasn't the unwelcomed intruder, which in her own reasoning she wasn't.

* * *

"So that was how you ended up with the scar?" Max concluded, and he nodded grimly, his hand subconsciously brushing over the length of its rough texture.

"It was really painful, but he had to cauterize it, and the hot brand was the only thing we had while it was already infected, so I get that. Besides, I was out of it for most of the time, mostly due to the fever, so I really don't remember much." He forced his tone to be level and unwavering, but she didn't miss his brows trembling subtly, almost escaping her perception. _Almost_.

"So… now that the two of you were on the road, what next?" She asked quickly, to which he responded eagerly.

"We were lucky to encounter an abandoned flightship on our way, one happened to be containing food and supplies for transport. We stocked ourselves full and took a much-deprived rest in the shelter of its warm interior from the raging storm outside, but it took off with us still asleep inside."

"Wait," she pointed out, "I thought you said it was abandoned?"

"Yeah, that was our assumption, but turned out it wasn't. So when we woke up sometime after the take-off, we really couldn't do anything else but to sit still and wait for it to land." He shrugged, in that completely unpertubed manner only a 9-year-old could possess when discussing about such a horrific event. "According to Sean, air patrols don't bother to check every cargo shipments, so we escaped the country with no trouble."

"But don't you miss it? Leaving the only place you've ever grown up at? Putting behind all memories and strings attached to your only home?" She asked again, voice raised out of disbelief. She had such a hard time leaving Arcadia Bay the first time around that hearing about another's departure from their only home so easily just boggled her mind.

"Nah, not really. As I said, I was 6, I didn't have that much ties with the land, and most of my memories… they weren't happy." He said simply, but she understood. It was one thing to leave a childhood friend whom you loved above all else, but an entirely different matter to leave the country where everyone had been turned against you, where you watched your own family slaughtered before your own eyes and had to live off the roads for weeks because nobody could help them, or risk being caught as an accomplice to the declared traitors.

"I still don't get it," she resumed her inquisitive musing, "how can she make everyone heed her commands? If she was so much a tyrant like what you've said, shouldn't the civilians… rebel, or something?"

"No, that's not how it works, not in our world at least." He met her eyes, his own a black abyss of desperation as he spoke. "In Namaria, every country has a leader, an Emperor or Empress, and they are the highest leader of a nation; either everyone follows them, or they can be condemned as traitors to be publicly executed. The only way to overhaul an Emperor is to kill the previous, no other alternative, and they left little to chance when they infiltrated our castle by themselves that night."

So it was true, her assumptions; their home, the _castle_, was no mere residential property. It was the kingdom of the Emperor, of their father, and as such he always had a target painted on the back of his head. His life was in constant risk all the time, as such a transition of power is inevitable, thus his time was limited, and being the rightful descendants of his direct lineage, the boys' lives weren't easy from the beginning.

"Wait, if your father is-_was_ the Emperor, then doesn't that make you… royalty?"

"Yeah, we were the princes of Burian for as long as I can remember, but fat lot of good that did when the first thing she'd done upon claiming power was to put a 5000-grand's bounty on our heads." He grumped, and she understood, the accuracy of her assumption. Being of royal bloodline led to little else than their own hardship, and he despised it judging by the venom dripping from his words.

"But were your life… I dunno, happy? Before all the drama, I mean." She pushed, and he vented a shaky breath of air.

"I'm not sure… maybe it was, to them, talking all day long and not really doing anything else, but it wasn't what I call 'fun'. They were mostly entangled in their own business, so I hung out mostly with Sean all the time. We only shared daily meals together, but that was about the gist of it." Then, as an afternote, he added. "I know they loved us, and I loved them, but they just had such a weird way of expressing it. I guess having the burden of the throne on your shoulders can have that effect on you." He shrugged, and she found herself sympathizing. Nothing about the throne _wasn't _political, and a topic as diplomatic as that held no interest in a 6-year-old attention span.

"So, back to your runaway. The ship brought you across borders and safely out of Burian, so what next? Where did it land?"

He smirked at her, prompting her to do a double-check, even a triple-check, just to validate that the incredibly smug grin on his face wasn't of a cheshire cat but a young child. "You tell me, how exactly do you think are the odds of us landing just in the heart of the Resistance?"

"Resistance? What's that?"

"Basically, after the Empress established her tyranny, she brought a small army to wage wars all over Namaria in hope of conquering more lands, Burian being only the first of her big ambition. At the sight of her feeble force, they all underestimated her, at least until they woke up in the middle of night, their nation lost, defense breached and kingdom on fire." He retold, and twice in a row she couldn't help but admire the _other_'s effective use of their gift. "No country could stand up against her knowledge of the future, so the rest either flocked together into the Resistance union, or be dominated entirely, joining as one into her ever-expanding empire."

"And you landed in, let me guess, the place where Resistance is strongest?"

"Pah, not even close." At his flick of a hand, she was taken aback for a few moments, before he continued explaining. "We landed in a country already overran by Burian soldiers. As it turned out, the flightship we were in was transporting supplies to the army, and they wasn't too thrilled to unload the cargo finding half already consumed by the same 2 runaways that had escaped the country only a few days prior." He stopped to take a gulp of water, reminding her that her own was dry before she had even realized it, too enthralled by his vivid account of their journey. "So they captured us, and that was the first time Sean went through torture."

She waited for him to start having another emotional breakthrough, but the heartbreaking sobs or the flow of inconsolable tears never came. His face was as neutral as it could possibly get when a battle-hardened warrior relive the greatest battles they've fought, and after she had stared at him for what seemed like an eternity he only shrugged. "What? Something on my face?"

"You said Sean faced torture, but why aren't you…"

"Freaking out? Crying? Bawling my eyes out? Throwing a fit?" He offered when she trailed off with hesitance, and to her surprise he was thoroughly unaffected by the memory. "Nah, we're floating in the middle of nowhere in an unstable magical bubble created by hope, so I really couldn't drag myself down that path again even if I wanted to. Besides, it wasn't really as horrible, that time, compared to the time when… the time that General Price… the later time." He finished lamely, but his avoidance of the topic was intentional; he was trying to steer clear of the actual traumatic event, so for the sake of the story she forced her own lips shut.

"They never really let me see what they did to him, and he never uttered a sound louder than a whisper that sometimes I wondered if they really was torturing him behind those closed doors. Though the blood was quite a haunting sight, and I think it was watching him laying limp on the stretcher with blood splattered all across his body that activated my power." As if to display, he reached out with his hand, and with some difficulty maneuvered their sphere to a zig-zag flying pattern.

"Wait… you thought he was dead, and the power just… came out of nowhere?" Max asked, remembering her own awakening.

"Nah, I saw him breathing shallow, laboured gust of air. But I _feared_ he wasn't going to last a day longer with the rate they were going, and so I had to do something. The next thing I knew the bound strapping me down was pried free from the wall and they were hanging in the air with their necks strangled." He spoke quickly almost as if to hide the shudder that ran across his body at the last word, but she noticed it anyway.

"Strange… when I first manifest, I was trying to prevent the murder of Chloe as well." She'd said instead of calling him out for it, and she heard him swallowing an invisible clump in his throat, relieved. "I'd say our powers have something to do with… _helplessness_? The feeling of powerless, maybe?"

"Yeah, makes sense." He'd brushed it aside, and that was final. He wasn't comfortable retelling the story anymore, so she let him proceed at his own pace, providing him time to come to terms with the events himself while reverting to her own silent musing.

Their backstories… they were radically different, but still entirely similar in a manner. They were both driven away from their home, both went through the panic rush of losing the one they loved – even if she didn't know it was Chloe at that time – and in the end, they both emerged victoriously, at least from the first impression of things, anyway. Yet, he'd found a way to keep using his power to protect his brother and keeping them safe together, she wondered if there was anything she'd missed. A crucial step in playing superhero that made the difference between fucking up every timeline and not, perhaps a far shot, but still worthy of an endeavour. If she could just learn from his story, whatever it was that was preventing her from achieving her goal, perhaps, _just parhaps_, she could go through it once and for all, securing the fate of both Chloe and Arcadia Bay in her own hands.

"So, I think storytime's over for today. I don't know about you, but all the power made me tired. I'm gonna take a 5, and I'll suggest you do the same." He suggested first, and she complied, the 2 of them twisting and turning until they ended up in a position most comfortable that the tiny bubble of space allowed, before she gave up to the exhaustion gripping at her consciousness. Beside her, the boy was curling in on himself, hands on elbows and knees pulled up to his face, and soon enough she could hear his breath evening out as well.

While they both drifted aimlessly through the flow of time and space, nobody noticed the long, disfigured scar disappearing off the length of his cheek without a single trace left of its existence.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

It was weird to just sit and talk to one's mortal-enemy's alternate-reality-self in a civil conversation, Sean'd learnt, if the awkwardness palpable enough to slice open with a dull butter knife was any indication. The whole time he'd been trying to bury his attention on the sketchwork to take his mind off, but even half-distracted he could feel Daniel cringing as he peered nosily into their private talk.

"So, what you're saying is, I – _other_ me – was beating the heck out of you, then the storm came and sucked your dying bodies into its Eye?" The fraction of memory was after the exchange, so he had no recollection whatsoever.

"Yeah, pretty much. Lying on the ground, suffocated with my own blood, I realized how big a jerk I was, so I layed still counting down my seconds. The storm had a different vision in mind, apparently." She snorted, and he heard his own replica of the ironic sound. He didn't remember it at first, but Daniel had retold their side of the story, after he'd forcefully yanked him from beating the girl to death, his power went haywire, bursting forth a strong gust of wind that grew into a hurricane, sucking them all into its Eye before spitting them back out in this reality. He really didn't know how they were going to return home if natural disaster spawning off his brother was their way through, so instead of mulling over the million-dollar question he'd put it aside and refocused his concentration on the sketch of the castle in his hand instead.

She continued, realizing that none of them had anything to comment. "Anyway, I woke up in this other reality, which I recognized from _other_ me's memory was Namaria, right in this barn where you arrived barely seconds later. You were unconscious, but I wasn't, and somehow my body was intact, without a single laceration to mark the struggle I've just been through, not a Sean – the _other _Sean – in sight. I had assumed the two of you were your alternate counterparts, so I had to take extra caution and tied you up after gagging you with a chlorine handkerchief, so… yeah, that was my handiwork. Sorry for that. Good job on getting out, though." She paused, looking at his sketch, raising self-conscious bumps all over his arm before she continued. "Nice drawing."

"Thanks." He'd left it at that, and just like before awkwardness consumed the room.

"So… how about you? What you told me… was that the extend of what you remembered?" She came to a conclusion, and without an extra word he nodded. "Not anything after that point?"

"No, the memory exchange – whatever it was called – only happened once at that time, so I couldn't remember anything later on." He said while shading a corner of the tower. He'd recalled and retold with great details the events happening from his own perspective, but pointedly left out much of the _other_'s memory. Telling someone they were abhored and loathed in another reality because their alternate self was a psychotic bitch was definitely something he would try to avoid as possible, eventhough he knew she would've remembered it herself from her _other_'s memory. "How about you?"

"Well, similar to your own, whatever it was that triggered us to remember these memories… it affected me too. I saw you – _other_ you – driving a blade into Max's gut, and when I was returned to normal timeflow I just kind of… lost it. Went savage on you – _other_ you, I mean." She shrugged casually, but he could see from the corner of his eyes her hand rubbing at her neck. Daniel didn't possess that subtlety, however.

"Hey, were you injured or something? Because if you _do_ remember everything like you'd claimed, you surely must remember me, right?" He spoke from the corner Sean had forcefully confined him to, but since long he'd trespass any invisible boundaries he'd attempted to establish. "Y'know, my final outburst?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

No one spoke for a while, temporarily reliving through the moments of terror replaying in their own head. It wasn't an entire minute later that Daniel cut through the tension with his random question. "Do you think I'm a monster?"

The moment it left the child's mouth, all eyes were on him, but he met their stare calmly with his own unwavering question. "Am I?"

"No! Daniel, we've been through this…" He sighed, closing the notebook and putting it aside. Drawing could wait, self-blaming and guilt-ridden Daniel couldn't. "I told you nothing was your fault-

"Yeah, but it sure _did_ feel like it!" He snapped, forcing them both to recoil a bit from the telekinetic boy, but he seemed to have a better grip on his ability this time, or at least he wasn't pissed off enough yet. "I'm a monster with horrible, horrible power!"

"Nah, I think it's cool." Chloe had tried to diffuse the temper and play it off, but Daniel saw through her act instantly.

"How can it be cool when I _murdered_ you with that same power?" He'd asked earnestly, and Sean could see her stumbling over her own words. She must've remembered the pain of enduring the boy's wrath in great details, just like how he remembered _other_ him's torture sessions, and judging by her lack of words he knew she couldn't deflect that last question, not when she believed in it herself. She thought Daniel was a monster, and he couldn't blame her.

"Hey now, no one's a monster. Between us three here, none had shied away from taking a life before, and if you're insinuating at that, then we're all monsters, not just you." He tried a different approach, and this time it appeared to be working as the boy took a deep breath to cool himself down.

"But why do you keep saying that? That you and her are murderers? I don't know you, so I can't say for sure," he addressed the blue-haired who nodded with his reasoning, "but I know you! You're my brother! You don't kill people, Sean, not while I was with you. Did you do it sometime after I was kidnapped?" He raised the question, doubt apparent in his voice, but even so they could hear the underlying denial.

"No, Daniel, it wasn't in that time. It was another me." He sighed, realizing just now that he still had yet to fullfil the choice he'd made of telling the boy the whole truth. "Remember the story I told you yesterday?" When he nodded, Sean continued, biting down hard on his own lips and waiting for the inevitable outburst. "The 2 boys running away… that was me and you."

The boy froze, and with him everything in the room stopped moving. Breath was held, blink was stagnated and hearts skipped beating, all staring expectedly at his shock-ridden face, bracing themselves for whatever telekinetic dangers could be lurking this time the boy lost his calm. Sean had half the intention to run all the way out of the barn – he didn't even notice where they were before until Chloe had obviously pointed out the haystacks and drinking trunks around the room – through the back door, and seeing the girl throwing occasional looks back at the door he knew she was mirroring his own trail of thought. But Daniel was family, and being the older brother he couldn't afford the luxury of abondoning his own responsibility. "Hey now, I'm here, you can tell me whatever's bugging you, and we can work that out, okay?"

"What do you mean, that was me and you? How come I can't remember a thing? And don't beat around the bush this time, I want the truth." He grumped, his tiny fists bailed tightly, fingertips turning white with the constricted blood circulation. "And don't tell a story this time."

"Alright, alright, fine. Settle down then, it's gonna be a long one." He reclined on the wall behind him, and after sulking in place for a minute Daniel followed suit, leaving the blue-haired to stare at them awkwardly, not knowing better what to do. "That goes for you too." He'd offered, and like a drowning person clutching desperately at a lifeline, she followed his lead, moving over to sit by his other side.

"Alright then, where were we? Oh yes, the boys – _us_, running across the darkness of night onto the roads."

* * *

"Daniel, you sure this is the place and time?" Max addressed the boy, still dubious of their location. Their sphere was floating above a wooden boat – what she believed Daniel had refered to as a _flightship_ – and was waiting for the boys' arrival. Though why they needed to intervene in this seemingly peaceful night was beyond her; she was pretty sure in his account of the story there wasn't anything bad that was supposed to happen to them that day.

"I'm sure of it. This must be the place." He said, brows furrowed, and she could almost read his thoughts, anxiety and concern rolling off of him in waves of agitation; the boy shifted from leg to leg and couldn't keep himself still for more than a second was evident enough. She knew he was wise enough to hear the underlying tone of the real inquiry she'd raised under the seemingly harmless confirmation, and had deliberately evaded a direct answer. Knowing him and his stubborn nature, she'd left it at that, not pushing further.

His head turned this way and that, looking for himself in the darkness of the night as if they would be emerging from some random corner any moment. His movement caught her attention though, especially his scar-free cheek. "Hey Daniel, where's your scar?"

"Huh?" He brushed his own finger over the place of the supposed wound, but instead of rough texture all he met was smooth skin. "Hey, what happened to my scar?"

"How am I supposed to know if you asked me?" She bit back a curse at the presence of the underage. Their mission was risky enough without any distraction, and frankly she was tired of all the time-anomaly freaky bullshit that kept following them one after another as if they were a magnet for supernatural activities, which she guessed they really were in a sense. A time traveller and a telekinetic being inside a magical bubble of time-space matter, they could only hope for as much normalcy as a fish could hope to swim on land instead of in water.

"No, but seriously, something's happening with my scar, I can still feel it on my face, but I can't touch it with my fingers. It's almost like it's… _fading_ out of existence." He remarked, and she found herself thinking of the past they've just tampered with.

"Hey, do you think it had anything to do with the murder of your family? Like, somehow, we've prevented it, and so the wound never happened?"

He said nothing, but she noticed his hands scratching relentlessly at his own raven black hair, ruffling it up, a habit she'd observed from him whenever he was frustrated. His face wore an expression of deep contemplating, and she wondered whatever it was that he hadn't felt comfortable enough to share with her ever since he'd been doing it occasionally from departing the night of his parents' supposed murder. Figured he wouldn't have anything to chime in, she continued.

"Perhaps the physical worked different from the mental? Like, as confusing as this may sound, it was with the memory retained that you could go back and prevent it, so the wound never happened, but the memory couldn't vanish because it was needed for you to return in the first place?" She hoped her interpretation of the paradox wasn't too misleading, but instead it came out much more ridiculous than it had sounded in her head. "Stupid idea. Just forget it."

"No, you may have a point there… There's something, in my mind, and it kind of-

"Shush! They're here." She interrupted his own confession, making a note to herself to pry it out of him later, because from the corner of her vision dark shadows of the runaway brothers had appeared in eyesight, prompting them both into immediate silence as they observed the boys' actions, awaiting for their cue to intervene.

* * *

Within cover of the night, the boys moved silently in tandem. Their feet ached, their body tired, and their mind hazy. They were only an inch away from losing the grip of their own body to exhaustion, to the whispering of the devil in the air to just give up the fight. They've been treading on hard tracks for days constantly, and they wished for no more than a warm bed, a loaf of bread, and a roof over their heads. Alas, such was only available in the fantasy realm of their dreams, and cold, brutal, harsh reality kept on raging with black clouds, torrential rain and ear-shattering lightning. They were caught up in the wrath of nature, in the middle of nowhere, with no one to turn to but themselves, and the arms of one another could not shelter them from whipping wind. They had to move on, but their legs wouldn't comply, not after the 4-day streak it had managed to carry them non-stop.

The younger was the first to crumble, his attention diverted from the road for only a fraction of a second to chase after another illusion, another glow of a fire burning intensely from afar that he knew just couldn't belong anywhere but the imagination of his own deprived mentality, and that was all it took for his feet to step on loose earth, for his weakened knees to give out under empty stomach, and he fell unceremoniously into the muddy water. The other boy, hearing the sound, had half the mind to turn around and check up on his brother, but he himself suffered from extreme malnutrition, and the quick swivel distraught him enough to throw off his balance and sent his mind spiralling. He fell shortly a moment after, still reeling from the dizziness he had no doubt was caused by the fatigue wearing at his bones. His eyes were yet to refocus, all it registered was blurry renditions of various shades of grey, indistinguishable.

But from the sound of his brother's strained voice calling out for his own, he gathered strength he barely knew he possessed. He crawled, hands pressed firmly on ground and knees scraped ragged dirt, but he never once faltered in his crawl. He followed the source of sound, mindlessly inching in the direction his distorted mind had pieced together as where his brother would lay, and the image once again refueled his motive. Despite him burning from the inside, both literally from the feverish cold and figuratively from the urge, the outside world remained wet, damp, and bone-deep freezing. Regardless, he pushed on, without a second care in the world for the chill, because his inside flame kept him warm, and henceforth the furnace inched its way to the call of the younger boy, not dissimilar to a steam locomotive pulling with all its weight hauling the heavy freight train behind through a near perpendicular mountain, fighting a losing battle against gravity's all-powerful grip, but still fighting nevertheless.

He was only a foot away from his brother, when he started coughing. Each vent of body-wracking convulsion brought another star to his blackening vision, and the metallic pang of blood registered on the tip of his olfactory sensor. Bile threatened to overflow from his throat and swarm his mouth, while the crimson slick liquid tasted bitter on the backside of his tongue. Before he knew, fluids rose in waves, filling his mouth and dripping from charred lips, blood or acid indistinct, but nonetheless burning all the way out. His eyes were open, he felt as much, but his vision couldn't even tell black from white, and while the torn palms pushed hard on ground, his legs were unmoving, irresponsive to his call. His body flopped down on the ground, he couldn't drag it another inch with the best of his bleeding strength, and though the heat of his flame was still burning, a mountain of coal could not fuel enough energy to move a locomotive with its wheels derailed, twisted and disfigured so greatly out of shape to be even remotely recognizable.

In that last dwindling moment, he saw only the face of the brother he'd failed to protect, to keep safe, to fullfil his responsibility towards. He closed his eyes, searing that image to mind as the one person he had failed, allowing the ghost to haunt him as he gave up on the fight. Whatever next may come their way, he could not muster enough strength to resist, to struggle, to keep on in vain.

He was done running.

His father and mother had paid the ultimate price, and now was his turn. He could not keep eluding the grasp of fate, of the path already woven for himself, just because he was selfish, afraid of death and of saying farewell to his brother. The tiredness eating away at his core left little to choice, and as he was forced to let go, he did not stave off the unavoidable for any a second longer than necessary. Because his effort was futile, and that he knew, as well as the impending doom of his fate that should have run its course earlier and spared him the pain had he allowed it to.

But he did not knew the face he was staring at was barely his brother anymore, but the boy he already had saved, albeit a whole timeline prior. And now, as they boy stared down at his own brother, his fingers interwoven into his own and gripping with strength almost painful, he knew it was his turn to return the favour, to look out for the alpha, to fend off any enemy venturing into their territory and keep them safe. The smaller wolf had arisen long ago, and feral had it been, but it still didn't mature, not when the alpha was still around to guide and protect him. Now, as his brother lay still on the ground, rain flicking mercilessly at his beaten face, he finally understood what it was like to let the beast take control, to _become_ the beast. And there was no way his brother would be suffering under his watch, brotherly love had dictated and long dormant instincts had reinforced.

Daniel would personally make sure of that, this time around.

* * *

"So, now what?"

Max addressed the younger boy, them both sitting on a crate in the flightship that was bound to take off anytime soon. The still bodies of past Sean and Daniel – still without a scar on his face – laid out on wooden floor close to a miniature fire they had built on tarp, with stones around to confine the heat from licking out and incinerating the whole ship down. The boy had picked them up from their lifeless position on the ground and deliberately made the last few metres between them and the open cargo bay of the ship, holding his brother's hand the whole time and never letting go.

"I should've told you this earlier, but… I messed up, Max. I messed up bad…" With his face crouched down to the point his chin pressed against his own chest, he'd mumbled under his breath, and it took her actual valiant effort just to make out what he was saying.

"What do you mean?"

"This… them passing out, not reaching the flightship… None of these are events from the original timeline." He'd said grimly, confirming her own suspicion. They weren't supposed to intervene in events that weren't determinative of the eventual outcome, and hearing the boy direct them to the port where they would take off from Burian had seemed like an unlikely destination of choice. She had half the mind to doubt there was ulterior motive behind this diversion, but as it turned out she was correct.

"So, we changed the timeline by saving your parents, we even erased the scar of your face, what's wrong with the events derailing a bit?" She raised her own question, but already knew there was always, _always_ something going wrong whenever timeline alteration was involved.

"Ever since we left the timeline and into the sphere, there's always this… flashes of memory, nothing too specific, just short glimpses. They were chronological to the timeline, but I'd thought they were just that, ideas of how things could've possibly turned out as. Until I realized they weren't."

"What do you mean-

"They're _facts_, Max, memories of a timeline we've created by changing that night. They're piece of remembrance fighting to past through the barriers of realities to merge as one with my own, and now I could hardly distinguish mine from theirs." He'd said in a rush, words racing out of his mouth in barely audible volume that she had to strain her own ears just to catch them. Realizing how silent she was, he continued. "They only hit me full-force when I exited the time sphere, and now they're a completely different set of memories."

"What happened then?" She prompted gently, and he looked at her, eyes teary and bloodshot.

"They didn't die that night." _His parents_, she'd understood. "Instead, the Empress had accused him of treason to his own country, and then the people had this open court. She presented all these documents, evidence, and the people already hated him, so they kept criticising him with accusations…" When his voice dropped into inaudible murmur, she'd thought he would break into sobs, unable to continue the story.

Instead, he proved her wrong when he raised his own voice, almost screaming furiously the next part. "He didn't say anything in his defense, Max! He was the goddamn Emperor, he could've just as easily hung them all for misspeaking out of their peasant place, but he _didn't_ do anything! He just said there, staring shocked at the pile of evidence against him, and let himself be cuffed when he should've fought back!"

Though the boy had exploded in a fit of tears and shrieks, she knew deep down the anger originated from the betrayal of the Emperor. That though he was barely 6, he understood his father's silence was the closest thing to admission he would ever get from his own father, admitting all the sins he'd committed to their people and much, much more than that. He broke his heart, his trust, and his love when he had allowed himself to be sentenced, to have the power stripped away from him in humiliation, and the wrath Daniel was putting up now was merely a cover to conceal his pain, an affliction he'd only just received due to them messing around with the timeline.

The first time around, their parents had died protecting them, urging them to run, and to the 6-year-old that was enough to become a hero, a role-model, an immortalized idol in his innocent mind and simple way of thinking. But the crimes he'd committed was long, long before that fateful night, and when he was murdered he wasn't the pure saint that Daniel had remembered, had forced himself to believe, to accept, to love. He simply wasn't the father that the young prince had thought he was all along, but if it wasn't for their worst enemy murdering them he would've never found out the truth.

It was another lie, crumbling to ash before his very eyes, revealing the brutal truth underneath. A truth that had hurt even more simply because it was from someone he had known dear, and was revealed by the very hands of his own enemies not out of the intention to hurt him, but out of the need of the people, the higher good, the bigger picture. Their action was justified, and knowing that he himself was defending a lost cause the whole time made it hurt all the worse.

"They executed him. Hung him and mom. And then they turned for us." He hissed through clenched teeth, the anger for both the adversary and his own parents turned his rage into a beastly apparition of the boy, and the sight of his flashing canines made her take an involuntary step back. "Sean had to pull us away from the trial court and straight into hiding as the people blocked all roads, with pitchforks and scythes raised high as they scoured the country demanding to see the last of our father's lineage – me and Sean – hung. We had to retreat to the woods, and that was what took us so long to get to the border. There was no sympathetic civilians' offering food and abandoned hut as shelter this time because we were cut off entirely from civilization, and the wilderness was tough." When he finished, crates were floating mid-air behind them, and if she was to diffuse the situation she had to do it quick.

"Daniel, hey, you still got here, didn't you? We gave them a nudge, and now they are safe from the storm, see? They have the fire to keep them warm, and the food to feed on, they'll be fine when they reached Egor, like you've told me!"

"No! Nothing can be _'fine'_ anymore! We messed up time! Now look what they've become." He gestured to their lifeless bodies, and Max gulped when she saw their chest still rising with every breath of warm air, albeit very slowly. "If this is what out intervention had done in a matter of weeks, what will happen in 3 years, Max? What will become of me? Or Sean?"

She found herself without an answer to that question, only worse scenarios playing out in her head. As if sensing her hesitance, the boy slammed his fist forcefully on a crate, his power doing the same to the rest of the floating objects. "We can't change anything, Max! All this tampering will just work out in _their_ favour, not ours, and I'm sick of losing all the fucking time!"

When he'd snapped, she panicked, and words came sputtering out of her mouth. "Hey, look on the bright side! They may have the people's support now, but she would still become a tyrant, and in the end they would all grow to loathe her just like they used to, see? And besides, your scar was healed, so that has to count as something, right?"

Though she'd said the wrong words, as it would seem, because if it was even possible, she'd turned his fit into an ungodly wrath.

"There's no-how can you-Urgh!" The boy sent a crate of ration flying at her, but her rewind relocated her a good feet away from the incoming. "How can you stay so fucking _oblivious_? We saved their lives, and see what happened! They died anyway, but instead of being heroes, now they're convicted criminals! Traitors! And you saw _them_, Sean and me, they were barely clinging on to life, for crying out loud! What if I didn't insist on us arriving here? What if we didn't help them make the last hundred metres to the flightship? What if they'd been caught just a day longer in the woods, without a roof under the storm? What if they'd died for this stupid scar?" With every outraged exclaimation, another projectile hurled through the air at her direction, causing her to force-rewind her way aside.

"Daniel! Calm down!"

"No! You lied to me! You said we could change things, but in the end could we really do anything? No! We only ruined things for the worse!" He'd given up trying to hit her with various objects and ended up launching himself at her instead. She could've easily side-stepped his frail body, but for fear of injuring himself she'd stood her ground and braced for the impact instead. They stumbled backwards a few feet, until she'd lost her footing and sent them both tumbling down wooden floor.

"I shouldn't have listened to you! You're a liar, just like my father, just like everybody else in my life intent on ruining it! Just like Sean when he'd said he would stay with me forever!" He cried into her arms, all the fight dissipated abruptly to be replaced with body-wracking sobs, and she held him steady while he buried his head into her shirt. "I want Sean back! _My_ Sean! I wanna go back!"

And when he looked up at her, his eyes glittering of unshed tears, mouth trembling violently and fists gripping tight at the fabric of her shirt, she couldn't hold on to her resolution anymore. "Then we'll go back. If that's what you want."

"I _want_ it." He said instantly, voice strained and uneven due to the recent outburst of emotion, but she could still hear the desperation in his plea. He'd tried nurturing the hope, following her lead at playing the hero, but he couldn't do it. Didn't have the strength to, not without Sean as his constant anchor, guide and protector by his side. He needed Sean, just as much as she had needed Chloe after the dilemma of Arcadia Bay as her source of stability through the chaotic turbulence of her own deprived mentality. The only constant within her world to hold her into strong arms and lend her the shoulder to weep on; to cling to whenver she woke up screaming from a vivid nightmare or a reenactment of her worst fear.

And now, he needed that more than anything she could offer.

"Then get your hopes up, because we're heading home."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

"… and then when you apprehended her – you," he'd flicked his head at Chloe, them both nodding in understand, "away, I turned to confront the Empress."

Upon the end, they'd all tensed. Silence reigned as they all held their breath, awaiting the ultimate outcome.

"She said nothing, and eventhough I had pictured million ways of ending it, I just couldn't believe that it was real, that the 3 years of our lives had come to an end, that we could finally put a stop to everything. So I said nothing, and just like that we stood staring at each other."

"But then you still unsheathed your sword, didn't you?" Chloe asked, her voice a calculated neutral, composed to betray none of her true emotions to the world outside than cold indifference. He had tried to reach through that barrier many times, but she always knew and prepared for his silent assault by keeping her own lips , although he couldn't read anything from her face, he could still hear her breath silenced, held back in anticipation of the final straw.

So he lowered his own head in bashful shame as his voice betrayed his own wavering guilt. "Yes, I did."

Once again, the room submerged into silence, but this time it was not the heavy foreboding of the unknown that held their lips together; it was silent contemplating. Daniel looked into the distance, eyes unfocused, lost in a world of his own, whereas Chloe breathed in short huff of air cycling through her mouth. Both of them did not look at his face for the moment, and for that he was thankful. He couldn't help the submission rising in his own posture that negated every single instinct of his dominant characteristic, but the internal conflict was the least of his concern compared to the initial reaction of the two audiences. Holding his own breath, he waited for the blow, the aghast denial, or both, so certain that they would come regardless of what he may have said or done.

But after a while of absolute silence, he chanced a glance at the girl. She was still sitting huddled, hands around her knees and chin resting atop, but her head was turned in an angle that would make his face visible in the corner of her vision. He couldn't see her own eyes to validate if that was true, but the mere intimidation of the possible stare brought his own head back to the hunched position he'd adopted since blurting out the truth.

Surprisingly, it was also her who had made the first initiative to speak up and break the spell of silence. "So, that was your side of the story?"

Her voice was empty, devoid of any sentiments she might be having, and he couldn't place the tone in neither accusative nor questioning even if he wanted to. Yet, it lacked malice or actual animosity, so he'd given her a nod for his response.

"And you killed her?" Daniel had raised his own voice this time, incredibly soft and understanding. He was tilting against his side, head turned to face directly at his own, and when their eyes brushed Sean could not tell if the sympathy was genuine or fake. Nonetheless, he gave another nod, and this time they both seemed satisfied with his reply.

"Well, at least you were honest with me this time. Thank you." The boy had said first, tugging at his shoulder until he'd gained his attention, and he felt every ounce worth of sincerity from his words. Daniel _didn't_ blame him. But most important of all, he wasn't feeling guilty of his brother's death anymore, learning it was well-deserved, and for that he was glad. The boy didn't seem all too bothered by his detailed account of the torture and he wasn't showing any sign of mental trauma, but he could be faking it. Sean made a mental note to ask him again sometime later, just to be sure though.

"And I've never heard the full account of the story before, but… this Max does seem a bit off. Oh, what am I talking about? She's an outright lunatic psycho, and you did the right thing ridding the world of her. I don't exactly agree with your methods, but I can't say she didn't have it coming." Chloe had placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, and though the touch was nothing more than superficial, he understood the meaning it conveyed. _I forgive you_, it'd said, and he let out a shaky sigh in relief. No more conflicts for that awfully long and terrible day, at least.

"So the rest was pretty self-explanatory, I guess? I stabbed her, and the storm bled out of her dying body, sucking us both inside. Chloe arrived just in time to see us disappearing into the Eye, and went through the same fate, so did Daniel a few seconds later. It spat us out on a golden beach where we confronted you." He ended the story, earning a nod of confirmation from Chloe, and simultaneously an expression of perplexion on the younger Diaz's face.

"Wait… who do you encounter? Aside from Chloe, I mean?"

Though he had directed the question at Sean, it was Chloe who spoke up. "Max Caulfield, my girlfriend, the one from our original reality."

"And like the Empress, she also had time-rewinding ability?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Though now that you mention it, she'd told me sometime that whenever she was mortally injured, a force-rewind would kick in, reversing time back to a comfortable point prior so she could change something and save her immortal ass in time, which in your account could very chronologically match with the storm..." Sean winced at her cursing, eliciting a chuckle from the boy and an amused raised brow from the girl. "Oops, my bad."

"Sean, I don't really copy any curse word I hear people speaking, you know? Otherwise I'll be putting a sailor mouth to shame by now, so you can stop worrying about me, I'm old enough, okay?" The boy had punched his arm playfully, and with a fake gasp he returned the gesture.

"Wow, never thought I would live to see the day you finally grow up. Good job, _bambino_, we might even move on to potty-train you tomorrow."

"Shut up!" They boy's face was red, and he took pleasure out of pushing him a bit further.

"Come on, what's there to be ashamed of? Everyone peed themselves at one point or another… just mostly not after they're 7, _and_ in class."

"Sean!" Now he'd launched himself at the older Diaz, and while the two of them were having the greatest tickle battle of mankind's history, Chloe sat watching, amused, her own line of thought forgotten in favour of enjoying the show and betting on who would emerge victoriously.

* * *

Max stared at the boy, who had remained silent for the last half an hour. As they maneuvered back to the other timeline, they were soon to realize how the flow had shifted in the short period of their departure. They could still navigate their way back, but it was certainly with more difficulty than the first time they'd left, almost as if they were rowing a boat against the current rather than along with it this time. Reverse time trickled slower, its flow more temperate and less rushed than when she'd done the ordinary rewind, though she had a theory that it might have something to do with the heavy load of another person she had to encompass within her power.

Currently, he was facing at the vast nothingness of the midrealm – a term she had so endearingly named the middle plane – and by the look of his unfocused eyes, she hazarded a guess he wasn't even paying attention to his own view. Somehow she could sense the turbulence troubling his thoughts, the complexity of which put her own twice-as-large brain to shame, and rather than trying – and failing – to depict whatever was underneath all that musing, she decided to break the silence and raise the question instead.

"So… missed home already?" _Damn it_. She could've gone for practically anything, and she went with the worst possible small-talk opening as her choice. The boy didn't seem to mind as much, shaking his head and himself out of the trance.

"Nah, this reality we're leaving, that's my real home. The other, I barely knew about less than 3 days ago. But…" He paused, and she nodded reassuringly, "… in as sense, it's the closest to home I can ever get. I was given shelter, food, and a place to rest, which is entirely better than the whole 3 years of joining the Resistance."

Hearing him confessing out loud broke her heart. "You couldn't afford all that in war time, right?"

"Yup, pretty much."

Then the ice froze over the small time-space sphere, rendering them totally still in absolute awkwardness as the bubble continued drifting. After a while, she couldn't stomach it anymore herself. "Hey, at least you'll be returning to Sean, isn't that good?"

But to her own bewilderment, he barely responded to the mention of his dearest anymore than crouching his head even lower, chin pushing against chest and eyes snapped shut painfully. When he spoke, it came out little louder than a whisper. "I don't know anymore, Max…"

"What is it?" She asked, alarmed, the most recent time she'd brushed him off had resulted in the complete alteration of the timeline, even only for a few weeks. _That almost cost them their lives_, she'd mused to herself, but the dark thought was quickly disspelled when he continued.

"I just get this… feeling, you know? Like, it's really hard to explain, but I think it's telling me not to intervene with the natural course of the timeline." He'd admitted, his own breath shaky and unstable, forcing a sigh from her.

"It's the despair again, isn't it? You're losing hope again, aren't you?"

"No!" The boy had shot back, head snapping at her and eyes awide with unspoken words. "Not even close. I still hope with every fibre of my being that there is a way that we can somehow change all this, but it's not the case. This strange feeling… it was not my emotions. It felt foreign, weird, but I know beyond a doubt which even I couldn't understand why, that it is only speaking the truth." Then with a short pause to let it sink in, he said again, this time louder. "I just can't do this Max."

"Yes you can! We just-

"No, Max, anything but _this_." He'd cut through her charade of motivational speech and replaced the air with ice, once again. But if the previous silence was caused by misunderstanding, now it could only be a consequence of their own revelation. "It's a higher call, like my power, and it's telling me to stop struggling in vain."

_The boy wanted to give up, _she'd realized. Or at least she thought so, until he took her words from her mouth again.

"But you're different, you're unique. You're the time-bender, Max, and if anyone can unravel these misdeeds, then it could only be you." He turned around, clutched her hands into his own as he spoke again, this time looking straight into her eyes with those black pearls that stared right past her soul. "I don't want to sound selfish, but I'm asking you to keep on fighting this fight. For me, for us, for Namaria, for all those had fallen down placing their trust in us. They thought of me as the bringer of hope, of freedom and victory, but they misplaced their belief." He closed his eyes for a moment, as if gathering courage from deep within himself, before speaking again with eyes still shuttered. "But now that I know you, you're the real god, Max. You are capable of this, I know you are, and you can get to the end of this all. I'm sorry I can't accompany you any longer, but you must do this without me."

When his eyes reopened, it shone with sincerity more profound than she thought was possible from a child of his age. "I place my trust in you, because I know you're the right person for this."

He was completely _insane_. He had to be, because there was no way she could do this all on her own. Alone, she barely could keep herself running, and if it hadn't been for his story saving her from the brink of self-destruction, she wouldn't even be here right now.

"Then perhaps that was my role in this play all along." He'd remarked, with a mischevious glint in his eyes, and it was only then that she realized she had been thinking out loud, again. "Perhaps I was to go through all this, just to get lost to your world, just to awaken you and your incredible potential, and that was the full extent of my usefulness all along."

Was he even hearing himself out? He made no sense! She couldn't even travel through realities without him!

"Stop doubting yourself for a moment and see for yourself, Max. I'm not even touching the sphere. This whole time you held my hands, thinking you inspired in me a sparkle of hope, but in truth you were only inspiring yourself. That hope you saw reflecting in my eyes, that was your own reflection. I saw that hopeful expression of yours and knew right away that it was you, Max, and none others, that can make this all work out. You tried to save us, me, total strangers who attempted to take your life, because you were always a hero, Max, and that would never change. You needed only someone to help you recognize it, and that's all what I'm here for." He spoke, his hands now gripping her so tight it was painful. Nonetheless, she could feel nothing more than the weight of his words at the moment.

"What are you even saying? I'm not gonna let you give up like this! Come on, it's your reality! You need to help me fix it at least!"

"I knew when I stepped out of the bubble the first time, that time wasn't to be messed up at a whim. Especially not when I'm part of it." He raised his right arm, and she couldn't hold back a gasp. It was _transparent_, and she could almost see through skin to see blood flowing underneath. "The memories assaulted me, and they weren't just different memories, Max. They were recollection, of an entirely different person, another me that my tampering had created, and like any other faulty error that must be rectified, so is this broken version." He refered to himself as he spoke, and though she shook her head valiantly, she knew it was truth. "You are the only one blessed with the ability to retain memories from other lifetimes, because unlike anyone else, _you're_ the time-bender, Max; I'm just an extra baggage tagging along, already expiring its use since long and yet still messing with things that are much higher than itself."

"No…"

"Time is chasing to catch up with me, and soon I will be erased for good; the time sphere can only delay the inevitable for so long."

Terror gripped at her own mind, and forcing everything aside, she'd grabbed his hands, shook his lithe body and lifted his face to meet her own, but true to his words she could only grasp at thin air. "No, this can't be happening. We changed the timeline before, and we only erased the scar, nothing more. Nothing _should_ be more to that." Frantic denial turned her words into a jumble mess racing from her mouth, but meeting her panic was his collected composure.

"The change was already palpable then, Max, I was barely myself when I had attacked you. That was _other_ me, the one condemned by his own people as the beast, who would soon to be burned on the stake with his beloved brother. These glimpses of memory are but late renditions of the real timeline and the tragic that had already been; there would be no changing that anymore now."

"No, there must be something, _anything_ we can do!"

"Hey, it's okay. Look at me." He'd said, and by a miracle his hand had stabilized again, allowing him to tilt her head up to his eyesight. "I'm okay with that. Being overwritten, it's not as scary as it sounded like, and I understood this is something that would happen when I interfere with my very own past where I shouldn't have. It would be an unforgettable lesson, one I have no doubt the _other_ would remember as well, but that is just the way things are now, and there's little we can do."

"I don't believe in that! Fate, destiny, justice… that's all just another bullshit! We can change this! You don't have to accept it!"

"Perhaps they really are, to you." He smiled, his lips crooked in the most melancholic grin she'd ever seen, but even so it was just as sincere as the truth pouring from the bottom of his heart. "But to the rest of us mortal beings, it would be something as true and real as the death waiting on our porch. Sean… he doesn't have much time left, he was outside the bubble, and immunity couldn't reach him. It would reach me soon as well, in time, but I'd much rather spending my – our – last moments together."

"No, don't you _dare_ just give up and walk out there! You'll die in a matter of seconds!"

"I already have, Max, and me being here now is just a ghost of mine clinging on stubbornly to life, perhaps too stubborn to comply to the call of its own fate… But at the very least, I can now go, knowing I've fullfilled my duty."

"What? You're leaving me to do everything on my own! What've you accomplished leaving me here like this?"

"I awoke you, and saved you from the pain, from the void, even if it was with our own suffering. Nonetheless, we all have to take sacrifices, and I know beyond any doubt that it would be worth it. That in the end, you would save us all, and in the final timeline me and Sean would be happy together, blissfully unaware of all this drama…"

"That's unfair, and you know it!"

He sighed, rubbing a thumb over her cheek, already tear-stained. "I know. And if there was anyway for me to remember, to share the burden of the curse with you, I would, in a heartbeat. But that's the irony of life, isn't it? Nothing's fair." By the end of his talk, he wavered a little bit more, transparency now reaching down to his shoulders. "Please Max, my time is not plentiful. I need to see him; the poor brother of mine is probably wondering what kind of trouble I've raised this time, and I can't say he's wrong, either. At the very least, I need to be there for him in his final moment."

Hearing him put it like that, she couldn't disobey. Pulling him into the tightest hug that a half-intangible soul could register, she choked muffled sobs into his shoulder.

"I'm gonna miss you so, _so _bad, dwarf-boy."

"Don't miss me. I'm not dying, just… rebooting, if you will, and you'll be seeing much more of me soon enough."

"Oh, shut up." She covered his own mouth with her hands instead, and blue lines began spiralling all around their anomaly sphere while she pressed the boy harder to her own chest, engulfing him in her arms. Feeling the ghostly sensation of the boy's corporeal fingers snaking across her back, she closed her eyes, bitting down hard on her lips to repress fresh, hot tears as she commanded the sphere to take them back to where it all began, knowing she would be sending him off for the last time.

When the blue light dimmed and the shiverring air refocused into clear sight, the midrealm was empty.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Max had expected to arrive in the bubble into the exact same moment they had left, back into their own bodies, but she was dropped a good mile away from the beachhouse instead. From the horizon, dark clouds wove into thick layers covering up the glorious sunlight, and the sea was raging with higher tidal waves crashing onto golden sand. She wasted them no care as her heels carried her back to the place where she had no doubt it would all happen again.

By her side, Daniel was trodding along, his steps light and silent, but Max had to force herself to remember that he'd had years worth of spy training, and that it had nothing to do with him fading away from existence. He just _couldn't_, there was no way she would tolerate it, not in a milennia and not even after. After everything she'd gone through with the boy, she'd grown to love and adore him as much as a small brother she'd never had, and for once had she truly understood what it was like to have someone who knew what she had to go through. That she was special, because he was just as special himself, and over the unusual common ground had they bonded so quick. Now, though? He could sputter bullshit about accepting his time all he wanted, there was no _fucking_ way she would let him wither away into vast nothingness, not under her watch, and definitely not under her temporal manipulation.

Af if understanding this, the boy came to a sudden stop, slidding a few metres before reaching total halt. She, carried by her own momentum, tumbled forward and down into the sand on her face when she'd attempted to copy the gesture, but it was the boy's words that shocked her more than the pain of the impact.

"Don't try to save us. You can't save us now, it's too late, but you can save our past selves, make sure that things would never have to come to this."

And with that mysterious remark, he had jogged along, leaving her still dumbfounded and lying face-down on the sand. When she stumbled to her feet and began catching up, strong wind was already picking up, whipping mercilessly at her face and pushing her backwards with all its might.

"Daniel! Wait up!" She'd screamed, while trying to walk through a sudden cloud of sands picked up from a strong gust of wind and was now scratching her skin as it was blown violently into her face. Nonetheless, she moved on, the tropical beachhouse the only burning target in her mind, and with every fibre of her being she was intent on preventing the ordeal before it was forever too late to.

The natural climate did an excellent work to stagger her steps, however, and as torrential rain poured down on her head, she lost her purchase on wet, slick sand and fell again, this time face-up and back to the ground. Still yet to give up, she plunged a hand into the earth, and with it as her anchor she hefted herself back to her feet, returning back to track step after arduous step, the beachhouse growing bigger and bigger in her vision until she finally reached it.

Stumbling across the porch, she stepped inside the house only to find total emptiness. _They_ must have been gone, her mind had pieced together, and refusing to accept the nature of the matter she'd reached out with her power and rewound, the original style. Soon enough, debris flew backwards, and flickered back to existence from oblivion was the two boys she were yearning so desperate for.

"Daniel! Take my hand!" She'd offered, intent on extending her anomaly bubble and providing them with as much immunity from the timeline as possible, if only to stretch their remaining time out a bit longer, but he didn't take her offered hand. He looked at it with sadness, then reaching down to his brother's own hand, the boy closed their fists around one another, tears brimming from the edge of his own vision.

"Goodbye, Max. We may not remember everything you've done for us if all worked out, but forever we'll be indebted to you. Thank you, for everything."

"No!" But she was too late, because the moment the word left her lips, they were already gone.

_Rewind_.

"Don't waste your energy, there's nothing you could do."

"No!" Jumping at them, her hands brushed across physical contact for a second, before matter dissipated into thin air.

_Rewind. _And this time, she pulled at the timeflow with every ounce worth of power she possessed, determined to bring it back as far as she could, until tiring numbness became hot, blinding pain forcing her to stop. Looking up, she saw the house still in shambles, various objects broken and destroyed during the conflict that must have taken place barely moments prior, but Chloe was nowhere in sight. The boys, however, seemed to be unaffected by her power this time, and whatever she'd done only succeeded in lengthening their farewell.

"Hey, Max? Daniel? What happened?" Sean had finally aroused this time, and it wasn't until then that she had really taken a look at him. His body mangled, blood oozing out from open lacerations and deep gashes all across his arms, legs and rib. A hideous scar ran down he side of his head, still bleeding profusely, and had it not been for their current predicament she would've been horribly concerned for his life. That wouldn't matter now though, seeing that the time he had left was probably shorter than the time it took to bleed out entirely.

"Hey, Sean, you look… horrible." Daniel spoke weakly, his voice shaky, eyes shining abright with unshed tears glittering in the corner. She knew seeing him like this hurt him bad, and if it had been any other day he would throw a fit right then and there without further ado. Yet, their time was limited, and knowing this he held back, if just for the sake of his brother. Judging by the wetness dampening her own cheeks, she couldn't muster as much control over her emotion as he could.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry, _enano_, I messed up again, didn't I?" The older smiled, chuckling under his laboured breath, but the good-humoured sound grew guttural and constricted until he coughed out a ball of coalgulated blood suffocating his air intake.

"Shush. Save your strength, don't speak." The boy had said, holding his fingers to the other's lips and rubbing over them with his thumb, wiping the blood clean off his face. "I don't care if you've hurt people. You're my brother, we've been through so much together that I wouldn't have my favourite person in the world any other way."

When the older Diaz looked up into his eyes, the boy spoke the next part so softly that she had to strain her ears to hear. "I thought I needed to go back, to change our past, and I thought I was saving you, _us_, from our fate… But I messed up real bad. And now," The boy brought a transparent palm to his brother's cheek, their skin making contact and not phasing through one another made her realize he was just as translucent as the boy himself. "Now we both have to pay the price."

The older boy lifted his hand to Daniel's face and wiped away the tear stain that he'd failed to repress. "Hey there, I don't blame you."

"But I blame myself. For even trying to replace you with another Sean, maybe healed, maybe mentally healthy, but not _mine_." He had uttered his confession, and since then any ounce left of reservation was broken as the floodgate was unleashed. "I didn't understand then, but I do now. It doesn't matter if you've become a monster, or that I don't like it; you're _my_ Sean, the one person in this world and any others out there that I've gone through everything with together, and no alteration to the timeline can recreate that." They embraced each other, sobbing silently into the shoulder of their dearest, and the fuzzy blur at a corner of her vision told her she was replicating the notion.

"Don't. No matter you've done, we're still together, and that is final. Nothing can change that." Sean rubbed at the boy's temples in soothing circle as he mustered the last remaining of his strength to heft the boy into his laps. There, they remained, engulfed in the other's arms and limbs entangled, never letting go as time trickled away, as they both drew more translucent than ever, now only a faint silhouette of indistinct matter against white floor.

"I went back thinking I've been given this power to achieve something greater, and it turned out true. I could've done much more, save out world, defeat the Empress… but ever since the start it just wasn't me. The power is the mean to an end, yes, but I was never the one who was meant to wield it, not to do something like that." He said between sobs. "Our past was what created us, and to change it would be rewriting us entirely, so I wasn't supposed to interfere with it in any way… I hadn't known, had gone and done it anyway, and now we're both paying the price."

"Hey," Sean tilted his face up and placed a chaste kiss on his forehead, "I understand myself. If anyone is to blame, then it would be me, for turning into that monster, for forcing you to leave in the first place."

"No, Sean… Even without… all that, we still wouldn't last." At the older's baffled expression, he continued. "We're just the ugly flaw, the erroneous diversion of the main timeline, caused by the Empress – Max's corruption, and time always has a way of rectifying it, by us, through us and with_ us_. Even in the start, we were meant to be sent to this timeline, to bring Max back from her self-destruction, and after we've fullfilled that purpose, the only thing left would be to purify us of our deformity. The rectification of our own faulty existence would still come, be it sooner or later."

"You can't possibly mean that, Daniel! That our whole life..."

"It's true, Sean. Our whole life was a lie, a path already written before our eyes, and the illusion of freedom, or liberty, was just that; an illusion, while all we've been doing is following the track wherever it led. We're the canonfodders, the unfortunate victims whom time had chosen to be thecorrection. That no matter what we do, we would sooner or later be overwritten, simply because we were never meant to exist before the Empress had started the cycle. In an endless loop, we are but a mere fraction, serving our duties only to be restarted all over again." Staring aghast into his eyes, Max startled herself when she realized he was speaking the truth.

In her mind, a thousand questions raced, almost incomprehensible. Why did it all make so much _fucking_ sense? How did he know all this? When did these strange memory occur to him? How much time do they have left? And what kind of an ugly, twisted and cruel, sadistic world would give birth to someone only to take away their free will, to force them into being the cataclysm of a crime they haven't committed? But most important of all, she wanted desperately to ask-

"Will you remember?"

She didn't say it, the _other_ him, after the reboot. In the utopian final timeline they had always refered to, when all was well and done. When there was no more drama, no more hardship, no more tragical endings that were meant to be in the first place. _In the final timeline_, she'd insinuated, and wordlessly he understood. So she had waited for him to nod, to reaffirm her that in the end, they would all remember this timeline, this event came undone by her own power, that they would be happily reunited – _this_ version of themselves, the one having been through so much to get here that it simply wasn't fair, wasn't justified, wasn't _right_, for them to be erased so completely, so thoroughly, without as much as an evidence left of their existence, of all the sacrifices they've been forced to make.

He shook his head instead.

"Save us." He'd uttered his final words, and after that they both faded away entirely.

She rewound, and rewound, and rewound, but even as the numbness grew white hot painful, even as exhaustion hit her like a heavy freight train, she could not force them back into existence. They were _gone_, she'd realized, and when the weight of it finally sink in, she lost her footing. Crumbling down to her knees, she stared at the place where they were lying just a minute ago, almost as if if she stared hard enough, they could re-emerge from white tiles and tell her that all of it was just a big, fat joke, and that they were still there to help her through this all, not abandoning her to the burden of saving worlds resting solely on her shoulders.

It was all too much. It was all too _fucking_ much, and without Chloe with her to help alleviate the pressure, she wouldn't be able to do this by herself.

She needed Chloe, _her_ Chloe, and like a fireflight blindly following the source of illumination, she walked out of the remains of the beachhouse; there was nothing left here worthy of her attention anymore. Her strides long and purposeful, she walked right out of the house onto the violently raging beach, under direct lightning and relentless raining. Unaware of everything, she walked on, and in the direction of her destination strong gust of wind started twirling. Dark clouds gathered above her head, tidal waves rose taller than her own head, but all of that affected her not.

She walked on, true to her intentions, and as such the wrath of nature bore no weight on her feet. She walked, and walked, until she was in the middle of it, the Eye of the storm, still in its early formation. She stood entirely still, her hands outreached and eyes shuttered as the familiar ripple of molecules ran across her arm, into the back of her neck and into her mind as the numb presence she'd always associated with her source of power. Though this time, as she called upon it, blue spirals twisted down her forearms, entangling at the tip of her fingers until it shot straight into the vortex, vanishing in the dark Eye.

When she opened her eyes again, she was back in midrealm, anomaly sphere surrounding her. It had only one destination in mind, and she agreed. She was heading for Chloe, wherever she was, and as the bubble traveled silently, left to her own thoughts, she mused over what the boy had said. _"Save us."_

No matter what it would take, she found herself with a steel conviction and a will to match when she whispered her own reply, "I will."

* * *

"So, what do we do now?" Sean had raised the question, prompting them all into silence from the friendly bantering. Since the story had come to an end, the blue-haired punk took great pleasure out of teasing the young boy with his embarassing incident, despite the boy's indignant shrieks of denial. With the distraction, he'd made good use of the time to finish up the sketch, and now as he was shading the last corner, he'd spoken out loud, effectively spoiling all the fun as he reminded them of their utmost priority.

"Find a way to go home, I guess?" Daniel had suggested, and he snorted at the obvious answer.

"Of course, why didn't I think of that before? I had no idea we need to go home." He's rolled his eyes in sarcasm, eliciting a huff from the boy as he snorted.

"Well, what do _you_ think we should do now, captain Know-it-all?"

The question had taken him by surprise. "We? Um… I'd say we find another hurricane like the one that had sucked us here."

"Sure, sounds easy enough. Random tornado bursting from your brother's palm, easy as pie, isn't it?" This time it was Chloe who came up with a witty retort, and he had to admit she was really, _really_ good at the irritable moody teenager act. He suspected there was a story behind, one he would pry from her secretive mouth someday.

"I don't know, okay? You think of a way to get back. I'm sixteen, so technically I'm still a minor; you're the legal adult, you'll think of a way for us to return. Meanwhile I'll finish this sketch." He'd opted for a way out, but they saw through his act.

"What do you mean-

"Hey-

"Alright, enough!" He'd snapped, cutting them both short. "I need to finish this one sketch first, and until then no questions, got it?"

The rest had submerged into relative silence following his immediate outburst. They stared at his drawing, every movement of his pen scribbling across white paper, and quite frankly it annoyed him beyond any end. "I don't know how to get home yet, but don't you think us stuck in this reality mean something?"

"Huh?" He'd caught them both in surprise if their simultaneous reply was any indication. Apparently, they hadn't expected that. "I mean, just think about it. Might it be that, somehow, we were brought to Namaria for a reason?" He spoke, thinking of the other's memory, and everything he could do to help them.

"What do you mean, for a reason? Like… is it some sort of, I dunno, an adventure? Where we become superheroes and save those in need?" Daniel suggested, hopeful, and Sean couldn't repress a chuckle at the bright beam on his face. It was moments like these that he was reminded that the boy was still nine, so young, and yet already forced to endure so much. Resolving to grant him whatever tiny solace he could, he played along, purposefully omitting the danger of their mission.

"Yeah, we'll be heroes, especially with you and your power! We can help people, save innocent citizens, and defeat the evil Empress once and for all!"

"Super-wolf, to the rescue!" He blew air from his mouth, and rising from the crouched position he started running laps around them, hands extended as if shooting through the air in hyper-sonic speed. They both giggled at his childish antics, until he'd pulled his hand from where he was sitting.

"Come on, join me! We'll be the super pack, howling through the night sky! Come on, Sean!"

He was reluctant at first, not because he didn't feel like fooling around doing ridiculous stunts with his brother, but mostly because of the girl watching them intently. Though he knew his concern was for naught when she herself stood and held up a pitchfork herself, pointing it at Daniel.

"Make way for captain Bluebeard, the greatest villain of all time! I'll make quick work of you, matey! Awrrgh!"

"Super-wolf will beat your ass, so you might as well give up!"

"Daniel!" He berated, and the boy, only realizing what he'd just said, hold his hands over his mouth as if afraid that another word would slip through them if he didn't.

"Oops, sorry?" He offered, sheepish.

"Told you he was a copy-cat." She grinned, smug.

"You better hold still, because this type of language calls for an old-school smackdown. You better get a head start, because when Silver Runner gets a hand on you, you'll never get away with it." He crouched, the boy's uncontrolled laughter ringing loud in his ear. He let him shot through the barn and into a haystack before he gave chase, Chloe following shortly on his tail. They would allow Daniel the small fun, for as long as they could, because retaining memory of their alternate reality self they knew there would be nothing but tragedy awaiting them beyond those closed doors.

They were in the storage of his luxuxrious castle, he was soon to recognize, and right beyond those double doors would be an entire guard platoon. Outside, in the harsh, brutal and relentless reality of Namaria, they would face many dangers yet to come. But inside the safe sanctuary of the barn, behind locked doors and secure beams, they would enjoy every last ounce of peace the world found suitable to offer.

Facing reality could wait a bit longer, he'd resolved. For now, he was Daniel's sixteen-year-old brother, and that was enough for him now. "Ready or not, here I come!"

* * *

Max arrived in the same castle she had upon first crossing the barriers, but this time it was bright morning instead of dark midnight. With an abundance of swarming daylight, she could now really take a glimpse at the mansion. Its dark silhouette casted on the pitch-black fabric of nighttime had shown barely half of its glory, because it was nothing compared to the spectacular view in daytime. Its tower reached tall, breaching the clouds with its top, and various shorter towers adorned the inside of the wall, which she had no doubt was observatory posts. The main building was typical 18th-century medieval architecture, with blocky large stone slabs stacked into huge walls. Though the most part of the structure was made of wood and glass, the stone occupied most of the important sections of wall, reinforcing the fort into an impenetrable fortress, and she found herself marveling at how the Empress had managed to breach through all that. A large trent ran along its border, with dark-coloured lumps half-submerged underwater lying immobile, as lifeless as a clump of rock if she hadn't known better herself. These amphibian beasts seemed inactive by day, and within reason, because the group of soldiers marching around loudly really did not call for the use of booby trap or complicated lock mechanism; their voices, echoed by their own ground-shattering footsteps caused enough of a display that it would probably stave off any attempt at infiltrating the building in daytime, she assumed. Though in the rush of their tempo, she dared say something had happened last night.

Suddenly, a stinking suspicion hit her, and she maneuvered the invisible sphere to the top of the tower to validate her mind's suggestion. The bedroom door, still an eroding slab of metal barely clinging on to its hinges, was all the evidence she'd needed. There was no way they would leave it like that without replacing it, not unless they didn't have time to. And as it was early morning, they should have at least the entire last day to have the door replace, unless if they _didn't_ have a last day. Unless if the door was still intact just last night, and an intruder had just destroyed it barely a few hours from then.

She was only a few hours after their failed murder attempt, she'd realized. Which also meant she – past her – and Daniel had just left when the sphere delivered her here.

The thought of him brought to her chest a ting of guilt, but instead of burying it away she turned it into the fuel driving her rage. She would change everything, now that he and Sean had already been erased from existence, there was no reason for her to hold anything back. She would give it her full potential, and whether or not the timeline could take it, she couldn't care less.

She was tired, and she would be damned if she gave a second _shit_ about whether or not the timeline decided to rip from her hands anyone else she knew dear. Chloe was still missing, gone, and she had no clue why the girl wasn't lying in a puddle of blood right next to Sean. Before, the boys had taken up all her attention, but her silent time musing in the midrealm had given her perspective.

Her first priority would be undoubtedly to retrieve Chloe, wherever the hell she was, and only after she was safe with her in her sphere of time-space anomaly would she give a second care about any world, promise to a telekinetic nine-year-old can go kindly screw itself while she was at it.

That said, she still exercised restrain to some certain amount, if the ruckus she was about to cause was considered restrain under any definition.

* * *

"Gotcha!" Sean yelled, sprinting behind the trunk of water he'd seen Daniel's hair peaking out from for the last minute, but pretended not just to surprise him.

"Yikes!" The boy jumped, in his surprise reaction tripping over his untied shoelace and falling face-first into the haystack, had he not caught him in time. "Thanks, Sean."

"Hey now, don't play nice and beg me to let you go this time. I've caught you 3 times now." He reminded him, rubbing the score of their latest hide-and-seek game into his face.

"Alright, alright, fine. Let's not play anymore, I'm tired." Daniel pouted, sitting back on the trunk, and he copied the posture, not really knowing what he was doing. They were stuck in an entirely different world with no way back, and rather than trying to escape all they've done ever since arriving was talk, play and a game of hide-and-seek, eventhough he knew he should be the responsible one and embrace responsibility. He couldn't help it; though he may have the memories of a grown-up, mature Sean, he was still the same him underneath, the boy who had been Skyping with his best friend when his brother got caught in a fight all the way back in Seattle, now a whole reality away, literally.

"Hey Sean?"

"Yeah?" His brother called out for him, his voice insecured, tentative, as if testing a water with a toe outreached. He tried to channel as much sympathy into his voice when he'd replied to coax whatever it was that Daniel was confessing out of him.

"The story, all of it, they're true?" He'd asked, and looking into his hunched posture Sean couldn't understand where this new found melancholy was from, not after their hyper-active game and the boy being all kinds of ecstatic barely seconds ago.

"Yeah, I wasn't making anything up. Why?"

"It just seemed so… unreal. Another reality, magic, another me, you, Chloe, the war… everything, Sean."

"I know, _enano_." He sighed, hit with sudden understanding. It came from his insecurity, of being the one outside of the loop, the only one oblivious of everything, only hearing them through the tales of another rather than through his own memories. He wanted to remember what _other_ him had been through as well, Sean realized, and he couldn't help another sigh escaping his lips.

"No, Daniel." He had to be stern about this, even if it broke his heart to see the boy looking at him, frightened. "This is not something you want to remember, trust your older brother about it this time."

"But I wanna know…"

"You already have, after everything I've told you."

"I'm not a kid anymore!" He bellowed, outrage, shocking him into silence for a whole minute, before he continued. "I know there're things you didn't tell me, Sean. And I know you hide them, thinking for my own good, but in truth it's not really working. I want to _know_, Sean, what happened, the full story, at least what I – the _other_ me – had already known. I _deserve_ to know."

"But I've already told you everything!" He uttered, exasperated with the stubborn boy. He'd even come clean about the torture, and though he had deliberately mentioned it in the least cruesome way possible, he doubted Daniel would want to know in length about how his brother was tortured.

"Really, Sean?" The boy asked again, his eyes now glinting sharp and a pang of challenge in his voice. He felt his inner wolf growled, eager to defend its authority, but he repressed the animal and the urge to snap at the boy for misspeaking his place just to hear what he had got to say for himself first. "Can you promise me that you've told me everything I haven't already known yet?"

He nodded, irritated at the boy, but entirely taken off-guard when he'd grabbed his left arm and raised it, rolling back the sleeves to reveal his skin underneath, revealing with the two scars he'd earned on the first night Daniel'd disappeared. "What're you doing-

"You cut yourself, didn't you?" His voice was cold, devoid of the anger just brimming a second ago, and his face turned in a direction that concealed his emotions from him. Though his tiny hand grabbed firmly at his wrist, and his thumb was brushing over the scar; not the two adorning his hand, but the one he'd inflicted upon himself in that night, his first attempt at taking his own life, which would already succeed had it not been for Max rewinding it away. The one already came undone, invisible from his skin, but still as clear and fresh in his memory like it was yesterday.

"How-

"How did I know that? When I was tied in the cave and you and _other_ Chloe had a conversation, I heard. She saw you cutting your own wrist. This is the place, isn't it?" He said, his nail pressing down painfully into the tender skin of his wrist. Without any excuse to defend himself with, he nodded wordlessly, half expecting Daniel to throw another fit or burst into tears at any given moment.

Instead, the boy surprised him once again by moving closer to him, until they were within arm's reach. He then looked up, eyes wide and black, bearing straight into his soul, gaze intense and unbreakable as they engaged in the fiercest stare-down ever.

"Why did you do it?" He'd asked, and the pain under his tone was raw, fresh, still oozing with blood like the wound in his memory. Daniel had been waiting for the right moment to ask this question all this time, and he understood where he got the idea of having murdered his own brother from. All the time, this question had been burning him, consuming him, and though he'd tried many times to ask, there was always something interrupting their privacy.

"I… I'm s-sorry, Daniel, I… I have no e-excuse. I d-did it because I was discouraged. I…I was weak, Daniel, a-and I was without hope." He forced himself to grind the words out, one by one. He was half afraid to look down at Daniel and see the judgement in his eyes, but curiosity got the better of him, and he'd met the boy's eyes with his own.

"Don't you ever, _ever_ think of doing it again." He reprimanded firmly, staring into his own eyes, and within that moment, they were no longer two runaway fugitives, or a nine-year-old chastising his sixteen-year-old brother, but two wolves, standing over the carnage of a prey they'd hunted together, but with the expend of a long gash splitting one's face in halves. Sean understood their position had shifted, that Daniel had finally matured, even if only for a second, but a second too long. Enough for canines to flash, for malignant threat to linger in vicious scowl, for guttural growl to be vocalized, and for eyes to meet. He knew then and there, that if he was ever to try something as stupid as that again, Daniel wouldn't hesitate to do what was necessary, even if it meant hurting him, even if it meant seizing control of their tiny pack.

"I won't, Daniel, I swear." He surprised himself by the sincerity of his words. He was serious about it, to his own dismay.

"Good." The boy had deemed it good enough, and had sealed their unwritten pact with a hug, cuddling up into his brother's side. It was done, and Daniel had resumed his position as the baby cub trailing after him, awaiting for guidance and protection, but never again could Sean look at him the same.

Because he knew, right then and there, that the boy would be his own undoing. He did not know how, nor why, but he just knew. And the instinct of his own animal never failed him before.

"Guys?" Chloe's voice separated them temporarily, the boys scurrying back to put some distance between themselves and to cover all tracks of their close proximity, in a way only boys can get embarassed over the smallest display of affection. The girl was returning after having volunteered to scout their nearby area, and jusdging by her rushed footsteps Sean knew there could be no good coming out of it.

"Guys, there's something happening outside. Something huge. Come." She was breathing laboured huff of air, but the moment the last word was out of her mouth she swivelled on her heels and returned where she'd come from, expecting them to follow without a second look. Stuffing the notebook and the pen into a torn leather satchel he'd found discarded in the barn, he ran after her, Daniel right behind. Together, they went out through the back entrance of the barn and into the outside world-

-where he saw the most ridiculous scene he'd ever seen his entire life. People all around the place, still dressed in late 18th century peasant casual, were throwing tomatoes at each other, not unlike _La Tomatina_, only that they were much, much more violent and much, much less civil. And on top of it all, he saw the Empress herself, apprating all over the field, emptying her basket of tomatoes at unaware participants, her own casual clothing spotless clean without a stain of red juice, as if she wasn't directly in the line of fire herself.

But what truly caught his attention was her choice of fashion, completely out of regard for the Namaria outdated gowns and leather, but totally walking out from an average adolescent lookbook. She dressed exactly as one would from their own reality, he'd realized, and it took another moment for him to come to the conclusion that Chloe already had by his side.

"She's not the Empress. She's… Max?"


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Max admitted, she was desperate, for Chloe, for any familiar face to bask in after such a traumatic event. Though why she'd deemed it appropriate to start a tomato-throwing contest to raise a ruckus large enough to attract everyone there was beyond her, seeing as she still didn't know if Chloe was at _that_ time and place at the moment. Given that the sphere had taken her there, she still had no reason to trust it after the hundredth time it had failed her recently.

Nonetheless, she did it anyway, and a certain blue-haired emerging from far aback launching a tomato at her was their first reunion.

* * *

"Tomato throwing, like, seriously?" Chloe asked, incredulous brows raised and lips curved in a half-scowl. Usually she would be the one on the receiving end of such an expression, but in this one occassion her behaviour was rather well justified.

They were sitting in a barn-like cottage with old towels spread around them while Max was scrubbing the grime off the blue-haired for what she was worth, after Chloe had forcefully yanked her arm back to the place, without a single word escaping her lips, leaving her not really any chance to defend herself or question their wherabouts. Though judging by her irritated scowl and grumpy, sarcastic responses Max dared to hazard a guess that it might be related to her rather exaggerated retaliation; she had seen it coming from afar, rewound herself out of the way, and then launched an entire basket, wetting her top-to-bottom in the red, juicy sauce of riped harvestables.

"Hey, at least it caught your attention, did it not? By the way, how did you get here?" She tried, while trying to avert the topic.

"Magical hurricane." The girl deadpanned, half-expecting Max's face to melt in confusion, but was only met with an exasperated roll of eyes.

"Why the hell does everything has to result in a magical hurricane these days?"

"Funny you should ask, because the boys went through the exact same process to get here." When she'd mentioned it in passing, Max had only half the mind to muse over her words, until quite a comfortable minute later that it actually sank in.

"Wait, the boys? Who, again?" She dreaded the answer, knowing it was exactly it was who she was expecting, but not really _them_, simply because she'd watched them withering away before her own eyes.

"Wait, yeah I forgot to tell you. The boys, as in Sean and Daniel, but the original version from our timeline." The confirmation tore her heart open, and forcing the sorrow back to where it was threatening to bubble up and spill over her facial, she hid her expression. A poor job she'd done, if Chloe's raised brows were of any indication. "You don't seem much surprised?"

"Nah, I've had quite an adventure with the boys on my own, and I can grasp at much of the basics. Like there're two alternate versions of them, one from this reality called Namaria and one from our own, and that me and you, we both have alternate versions as well. One set on world domination and the other a deadly assassin, apparently." She summed up, and the girl, still eyeing her with scepticism, nodded slowly.

"Where's the boy, then?" She'd raised the question, and without saying it she understood. She was refering to _them_.

"Funny you should ask; I recall you wounding one of them and leaving them to death on the floor back home." If she was getting cocky, two could play at that game, at least.

"Yeah, about that… Did you know he-

"Killed other me? Yeah, I wasn't outright told, but I could piece clues together. Seriously, with everyone neglecting to tell me the whole story until much, much later on, I think developing a set of deduction skills could do me well." She grumped, intentionally rubbing it into the girl's face. If she had taken the extra five minutes and spared the dramatic, she could've brought her up to date with everything that morning before, well, _everything_ had taken place.

"Yeah, so you knew." Awkward silence reigned on for a minute, until she spoke again, dispersing the tension. "Hey, did you also know we'd remembered?"

"Remembered? As in, memory from your other self?" At the surprise on Chloe's face, she continued. "Yeah, I've had my fair share of memory-syncing, and let's just say it's gonna leave a memorable mark on me, probably for life."

"Why? What happened?"

She debated telling the full account just to share the grief with someone, but the idea of reliving everything as she retold the story quickly banished that thought. "Long story."

"Maxine Caulfield, you tell me and tell me now." She snapped, and in full badass mode. She would've intimidated her into complying any other day, but not _that_ day. That day, she was beyond angry, and desperate enough to start a _La Tomatina_ in an alternate reality's past, regardless of the effects she may had had. On such a day, to piss her off would be to earn an earful from her, and she was determined to deliver it full.

"Who d'ya even think y'are to demand that? You started a fight from some distant memory that wasn't even yours, causing me to go and mess things up even worse, and then when I went back to get you, you were _gone_, vanished. I had to endure everything, _everything_, and now you had the decency to demand to hear the story like you're entitled to? I'm sorry, Chloe, but perhaps you should've payed more attention in the first place. Oh, wait, that's right, you _weren't_ even there in the first place!"

Following her tiny outburst was the girl's shocked silence, then another one as she mulled over her words.

"Did something… happen to them?" She'd asked tentatively, and the first thing she'd done was to stamp on that outreached hand with all her weight.

"You're damn right something happened to them. They faded into _fucking_ oblivion before me, and I couldn't do a damn thing; you tell me what's wrong with that." After she'd snapped, they both averted their gaze, and if looks could kill then hers was probably bearing holes into the ground under her feet.

And that, was how the boys in question figured it was time for them to speak up and remind her of their much ignored presence in the room, still very much as attentive to the conversation at hand and even more perplexed by the content of which. "Excuse me miss, but I don't get it. I don't know much about Namaria other than Sean's story, so you lost me there."

"I don't neither, and I already knew much of Namaria." Sean chimed in, backing his brother up. Their voice caught her attention quick, but it wasn't until then that she truly set eyes on them. They were so much alike their alternate version that it hurt her just to look at. To have your failure rubbed in their face and remind you of how they've failed to protect everyone, despite the great power you were granted. To sear the image of the brothers in mind, knowing you were responsible for the sufferings they might not even remember, both by committing crimes to their people in a lifetime you didn't live, and by the foolish actions of a mistake you've already paid dear the price of.

It fucking _hurt_. It hurt so bad, she felt her inside raging like a turbulence of indistinguishable matter, organs displacing themselves where they shouldn't be and ripping themselves apart fo the sake of torturing her. She felt tears streaming her cheeks all over again, felt the floodgate being released and every pent-up emotions unleashing without a grain of control to reign over them. She felt her own breathing interrupted by inconsolable sobs, bubbling up one after another out of her throat and constricting painfully at her heart as its beating became wild. She felt her own mind darkening, like the source of warmth, light and _hope_ was being veiled by a shroomy cloud of negativity, negating all the process she'd made so far and submerging her back to the brink of the _void_, only to be consumed by her own guilt all over again. The cycle, completed; not with a way out, not with a rift to break free, but at the start again, to be repeated and retreaded eventhough she'd known the outcome could be nothing but accursed tragedy.

But worst of all, she felt hope gripping painfully at the back of her head, the power urging her to tell them everything because it could take everything back at a whim. She knew it would be selfish to just empty the load on their innocence, to take away their bless of ignorance just because she was weak, just because she couldn't hold everything in by herself. She knew she would be condemning them to a fate worse than death by allowing them the bit of knowledge she knew would be their own undoing, just like it had done to the _brothers_. And she knew to assocciate them would their _others_ would be unfair to either of them, not because they were different people, but exactly the opposite; because she _knew_ they were the same, one reality or another. They were – like a certain rewind she'd forgotten long ago, its memories resurfacing fresh anew and detailed – flat renditions of the same polyhedron, all taken from different perspectives, each unique to a reality from where they were born and raised.

And she knew, like everything else she'd ever known, that by telling them the story, by pulling them onto this journey with her, to fullfil a destiny they were never meant to, to interfere with powers much greater than any of them, there would be nothing awaiting for them at the end of the tunnel but more hardship, drama, and pain.

But she was _weak_. She wasn't a heroine, like Daniel had claimed. She was always the person who cannot hold themselves together, always relying on others to take care of her problem when it spiralled out of her control. First it was Chloe, then it was _Daniel_, and now it very might be them, if she allowed it to.

She couldn't, no matter what. Even if that meant breaking her promise, failing the dying boy's final wish and putting all their efforts to waste.

"You don't need to know. The story, everything… it's a long one, and you're tired. Let's get you home instead, you've been out of place for long enough." She said instead, and without leaving anyone a chance to disagree, she sent blue lines spiralling from the tips of her fingers, surrounding them in the all-too-familiar sphere.

She would bring them home.

* * *

The girl was pretty weird, to say the least. Or she appeared to be, in Sean's perspective.

He'd had plenty memories of the Empress, of other Chloe, of his other life, but very little about her. Upon first impression, he had somehow imagined her to be another figure of power, just like brief glimpses from other him's first meeting with her was; a badass female heroine typical of 20th century video games. From what he'd recalled of her, she had stripped the sword from his hand magically right upon entrance of her house, before stepping out from behind a wall and holding it in her hand. Her other hand was holding something she'd claimed was an ancient Asian artifact, something uncannily resembling 0.35''-

_Wait_, it was a gun. _Huh, she sure knows how to brag_.

Alternate reality him was easy to be fooled, though, having never seen a pistol before in his life of swordsmanship. He surrendered fairly easily, and following him was Daniel, who had never made any major decision without his consultant, had no reason to continue. They had given up the fight, and only a moment before she had succumbed, with a nosebleed sputtering blood all across her face. Chloe seemed not to be much disturbed by that though, and after putting her to rest alternate him'd had an honest conversation with the girl, apparently having come to the conclusion that either she had gone entirely crazy, or she wasn't General Price at all; either way, after he'd made certain that she retained no memory of all the sins she'd committed, he'd decided to forestall her execution, at least for the time being.

And look how all that had turned out. Them, right there in the middle of nowhere, travelling in a cramped bubble inside what Max had refered to as _"the sphere"_, drifting across the time-space continuum back to where they came from. Though she had taken responsibility for opening the rift that manifested as the storm, there was still something he couldn't comprehend.

"How can Daniel be the outet of the storm? I thought his power was just that, telekinesis?" He raised his inquiry, earning a questioning gaze from Chloe and a melancholic frown from Max's own.

"It's just… the way of things, Sean. Not everything can be explained." She'd dismissed, her tone a feigned nonchalance that betrayed her sadness underneath merely by the trembling quality of her voice.

"Come on, Max, you can do better than that. What happened to telling me everything?" Chloe had placed a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and flinched back.

_Strange_. These two were supposed to be much closer than that, if they were anything alike the Empress and her second-in-command.

"Time happened, Chloe. And unless you can reverse it, like a certain _someone _who's just as useless as the rest of you, then I'm pretty sure there's nothing we can do about it." She snapped, gruff. Meeting her own annoyance was Chloe's scowl, who apparently had enough of her secretive bullshit.

"Hey!" Daniel had exclaimed, outraged at being called useless, but his voice was lost in Chloe's own.

"I don't care if you're touchy about it. You're my best friend, and we do everything to help each other. So aside from them disappearing, I need to know more than that, whether you like it or not."

"I said there's _nothing_ more to it." Now the girl was shaking, and he could feel the sphere they're travelling in shaking in response.

"Um… Sean?" Daniel tried to gather his attention with his timid hand tugging on his own, but he'd promply ignored the boy to focus more on the argument taking place in front of him.

"… As if there's anything you can do to help, Chloe. If anything, you should've mustered more control on yourself before you jumped at Sean and going all savage."

"But it was him who came at me first!"

"Off the record, it was you who provoked him into assaulting you, and for the record, I don't care."

"Sean?" Daniel was now nagging him at his side, but he pushed the boy away while his attention remained solely on their talk.

"I said, and I'm gonna repeat myself until it gets through to your thick skull, that I'm not gonna go anywhere until you spill."

"And like I have said myself many times before, I don't give a shit."

"Sean!" They boy was practically yelling into his ears, but he gagged him with a hand firm over his mouth instead.

"Why are you so stubborn? Just tell me, and we can work this out, like we did all the time!"

"Like hell we did. Remember Arcadia Bay, Chloe? The one place where you grew up? Was it destroyed by a storm? Was it erased from existence? Or did you even know any of that? Because I fucking _plucked_ you somewhere from the timeline that I can't even remember when or where now, and that's just the first of many."

"What do you mean, Max?"

"Like I've said before, I messed up. Bad. And I'm cursed, Chloe. I'm never gonna find real happiness, because whatever I do, wherever I go, whomever I tried to help, their fate would be as good as doomed."

"Sean!" Daniel had yelled, and it wasn't until then that he realized the boy had used his power to pull his hand from his mouth just to free his own lips. Deciding to please the obnoxious nine-year-old who couldn't for the love of his life shut the hell up whenever an important topic was about to be breached, he granted him the attention he so desperately yearned for, and turned in his direction-

-to see a huge horricane twisting from the very fabric of time and space, emerging out of nowhere and heading their way, either that or they're heading towards it. And judging by how quickly it grew, he dared say they were moving at break-neck speed into the Eye.

"Guys! Temporal typhoon ahead!" He'd screamed, panicked, and fortunately it seemed to get through to the girls who were too carried away by their little conflict that they all failed to notice the imminent danger approaching in the distance.

"Max! Get us out of here!" Chloe had bellowed, but if anything she succeeded only in freaking the girl out even more if it was possible.

"I can't! My powers don't work until we get out of midrealm, and the sphere is entirely driving itself!" She yelled back in response, because even when they were safe inside the sphere, the sound outside was loud enough to make anything quieter than a scream inaudible, lost under the raging turbulence. Daniel was gripping onto him for all he was worth, fists bailed so tightly on his hand that he couldn't feel his own skin, and quite frankly he would be lying if he said he wasn't mirroring the gesture. In front of him he saw Chloe holding on tightly to the girl's midriff, all prior disagreements forgotten, and Max herself was latching just as tightly onto the girl, limbs entangled and eyes squeezed shut in anticipation of the inevitable crash.

"Why does temporal storm always have to appear whenever I travel?" Someone yelled, and it could be either Daniel or Chloe with how fuzzy his ears registered the sound. The storm was now right above their head, if the mere pressure pressing on his body and threatening to squish him into mush was any indication. His head spun wildly, directions disoriented, and stars swam in the corner of his peripheral view; but it was the mind-numbing static that alarmed him of the danger imminent.

"Doesn't matter now! Everyone, hold on tight!" He heard himself speaking, and a feminine hand grabbing his shoulder was the last thing he knew before blackness swarmed his vision, clogged all his senses and submerged him into deep unconsciousness.

* * *

"Max? Max! Wake up! Max!" Somebody called to her.

It took her a moment to recognize the familiar name as her own, and another to gather enough strength in her arm to push the voice away.

"No time to snooze, Max! Get up!" They called again, and this time the world stopped spinning long enough for her to register who it was. Blue hair, blue eyes, and high-pitch voice.

_Chloe?_ Her hazy mind hazarded a guess, but she didn't hear herself muttering the name out loud.

"Yes, genius, it's me. You one and only, captain Bluebeard, ha-ha-ha. Ready now?"

_Definitely Chloe_.

"Alright, alright, I'm awake. Where-

She stopped herself short upon opening her eyes, not because the blinding light assaulting her all at once was bad news for her mirgraine, eventhough it was true. Not because of the loud sound shattering her own ears neither, eventhough it was also every bit as true.

She stopped herself, because her eyes registered the scene she thought was only possible in her wildest imagination. She stopped herself, because there was no words she could use to describe the unworldly scene playing out before her very own eyes, that wouldn't go away even after she had rubbed it twice, thrice. She said nothing, tongue-tied, but for the first time in the world truly understood what it meant to be shocked into silence. Her own heart skipped a beat when she realized that it was indeed, not a fraction of her imagination, or an extension of her memory playing loops in her mind, but reality that her eyes were rendering.

It was Arcadia Bay all over again, on the final day, them sitting on the bench under the lighthouse, watching as their town was being wiped from existence by the temporal storm that no doubt had spat them out from. And if the experience was surreal enough, when she reached out with her hand, it brushed only at thin air where there should be wooden bench, hard ground or cement wall. Even the rain phased through her intangible body, and it wasn't until then that she realized what it meant.

Aside her, Chloe's skin still very palpable and corporeal in contrast to her own proved the only one thing she'd been dreading.

Time had caught up to them, and while Chloe was finally returned to where she had rightfully belonged, she was being _overwritten_.

* * *

"Dad, I'm home-

He stopped mid-sentence, realizing something was off about his very casual greeting.

_Wait a second._ He was at home, in his house on Lame Avenue in Seattle, and on his back the comfortable weight of the backpack lay. But something just didn't feel _right_, he wasn't supposed to be there. He was supposed to be-

_In a middle of a storm_, his helpful memory supplied. _Yes, he wasn't supposed to be there, but_-

In a flash, memories of the incoming week rushed back into his mind, down to every smallest details, and along with it a terrible headache accompanied. Though such was comprehensible, because he was reliving two lifetimes at once, and there was only so much his mortal brain could process in a fraction of a second. Thoughts raced to overlap each other, events happening in double-speed, voices morphed into high-pitched squealing, and everything else up to the point he was inside the time sphere, travelling back-

_To my own reality_, he realized with a shudder. Instantly, as if powered by a freshly recharged battery, he swivelled on his heels and entered Daniel's bedroom in one stride, marvelling over his own speed. He didn't know if the boy was there, but his wolf ushered him to the room nonetheless, and he complied eagerly.

There he was, writhing and convulsing violently on his own bed, eyes squeezed shut and lips trembling. He was muttering nonsensical language, but from his hands gust of strong wind lifted everything and twirled them around the room, almost similar to a mini-tornado with him in the middle. Sean realized instantly that it was his brother that needed help, and as soon as that thought formed everything dulled into a hazy background as his first priority became to secure Daniel's safety, regardless of his own.

"Daniel! Get up! Daniel!" He'd bellowed, making his way into the center of the storm, a much harder task than he'd given it credit for with all the obstacles orbitting the boy. He was still turning, entangled in his own blanket, and by the force of the wind picking up he had a strong suspicion the boy had yet to notice him in his craze.

"Daniel! It's me, Sean! Come on!" He pushed forward, reaching the bed in no time. Daniel was already within arm's reach, he needed only to extend his arm-

-to realize, with horror, that the tip of his fingers brushed against only thin air where he should've made contact with skin.

Daniel was _fading_, and the boy just wouldn't wake up. Around them, the wind kept picking up, now nothing less powerful than the current of the same tornado that spat them back out here, and yet Daniel refused to open his eyes. He had ceased his struggle sometime ago, but that was even worse; it only meant he'd given up trying to fight whatever it was that was causing all this chaos. Sean reached out again with his hands, but like the previous failed attempt, he could not touch the boy's incoporeal body.

Something was wrong, horribly so, that much he knew certain. But he also didn't know _he_ was also fading, albeit slower, until his backpack dropped to the ground, until he could clutch an arm on the boy's writhing body and the nine-year-old was startled into an upright position, wind ceasing and various furniture dropped to the ground as his power fell back into control. A large bedside lamp dropped right above his head, but right through his body and impacting the hard ground beneath his feet all but proved his theory; they were both intangible.

He knew they were both experiencing something unnatural, something _unorthodox_, but he couldn't explain how. Daniel looked at him, his own black pearls round and questioning, but he found himself without an answer to satisfy the boy this time.

Movement out of the corner of his vision, and seeing Daniel tensed before him, alerted him into turning around-

-where he saw the only explanation plausible for everything. The only person who could've done all this, other than Max Caulfield the time-bender, someone no less as powerful and manipulative herself. Someone whose face he'd seared into his own mind as the one who started it all, the one who had caused them much pain and suffering, the one who he was supposed to have already driven a blade through the beating heart an entire lifetime ago.

He saw, a ghost of himself, the creature haunting him and Daniel for eternity to come, the one behind it all. He saw, the ghostly apparition, of someone no less than the Empress herself. But rather than a phantom of herself, he saw _her_, in the flesh and bone vessel of a human body, fully intact and alive, with heart still beating and blood still pumping.

"Forget me already? Let's make sure you don't again this time, shall we?" She'd asked, and he knew right away it wasn't any sort of hallucination when Daniel shot a hand out to grasp at his own, shaking slightly. He was also seeing her, and that could only mean she was real.

"Aww, why so scared? We haven't got the pleasure of meeting yet, have we? At least the young boy seemed to, anyway. Let me be brief; I'm the infamous Empress you've been hearing about in all those fabled myths, but a word of advice?" She side-stepped a pen Daniel had sent flying in her direction, even without rewinding. "What you've heard about me, don't trust them."

"Because they're not true, and that you're actually a kind and gentle person?" He sneered, venom dripping viciously from his own voice.

"Oh dear, by any means, please don't! But just so you know…" she advanced towards them, paying all the telekinetic projectiles no mind – she dodged them as effortlessly as if they weren't even _real_, "stories about me being cruel, sadistic, evil, brutal?"

"Yeah?" He challenged, the girl now only a step away from him and Daniel. Hearing the protective tone in his voice, she chuckled, the sound cold and devoid of all emotion.

"The alpha wolf acting up again? How cute. But what I'm trying to say is…" she leaned closer, her breath now raising goosebumps all across his skin, "all of them, the tales, the torture, the crimes, the accusations… they're true, alright. But in fact, you know?"

"What?" Daniel asked from somewhere behind him, alarmed by her close proximity. Apparently his voice was a source of amusement for her, if her maniac laughter following right after was any indication.

"In fact, I'm much, much _worse._"


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

"How… how did this all happen?"

Chloe averted her gaze, avoiding direct eye contact with her, which could only mean she knew something.

"Chloe?" She asked again, this time intend on forcing the answer out of the girl.

She fiddled with her fingers nervously, biting down on her lips as she grained each word from her mouth. "Um… don't freak out first, okay? I've only come to a couple of minutes before you, but I ran into someone…"

"Who?" She pushed, impatient. She didn't know how much time she had left, but she'd seen first hand from Daniel and Sean that being overwritten left people with not much time, especially not enough to stutter over words.

"Me? I mean, other me, the one from the other reality?" She offered, hesitant. Max raised a brow in question. "And?"

"And… well, she – her memory, anyway – kinda told me that all this, it was…" She trailed off. With a sigh, Max reached an arm out, knowing it would make contact with thin air, but did so anyway, phasing her hand through the girl's face to remind her of the urgent matter. "That all this was…?"

Like broken from a trance, Chloe startled with a yelp. "Max!"

"Sorry, you just wouldn't speed the hell up, Chloe, and I'm transparent now. I think it won't be long until I'm non-existent, so you wanna say…?"

"Your fault!" She blurted out, almost similar to a broken faucet sputtering water all over the sink, her volume a tad bit louder than strictly necessary. "Excuse me?"

"I said it's all your fault, and yes, you haven't misheard."

"I'm sorry?"

"All this… it's all your tampering, Max." She started speaking, but now her voice carried a faint, but distinguishable blame. "You refused to make the choice, between Arcadia and me. By doing such, you ripped a hole in the timeline, one easy to manipulate, and other you… she recreated all this."

"Wait." She gave the scene below another look, and just as she'd expected there were nothing more than mayhem and total destruction. But more importantly, there wasn't a single soul in sight. "You mean… all this isn't real?"

"In a way, yes. But what you're seeing isn't a make-up scene; it's another timeline parallel to our own, one where you accepted keeping me and losing the Bay."

"But… how?" She refered to themselves, her own translucence, and the storm still raging on.

"Apparently, other Max already mastered the whole time-travel thing, Max. She took advantage of the first storm you created, expanded it into various breaches into many realities, and when we traveled in midrealm, that hurricane we saw was the same one you've created all those time ago. Why you're fading and I'm not, Max, it's because…"

"What? Because of what?"

"Because… this is the timeline where you plucked me from, Max. I'm never yours, not in the first place. I… belonged here."

There it was, the burning question that had been killing her from the inside. She'd been dreading towards that answer ever since she'd learnt about her spouts of time-induced amnesia, the same one she'd been avoiding like the plague for all she was worth. The puzzle, now finally answered and brutal truth revealed; Chloe wasn't hers, not even from the beginning, and never after that, despite how many times she had tried to fool herself, despite how many layers of elaborate lies she had sprung for herself.

"Is is… true?"

"Yes, Max. It's true, because upon entering this timeline, I spoke to her. Other me." Each words were like another arrow piercing straight through her heart, but for the sake of the truth she must continued. "What did she say?"

"Max, do you ever wonder why the Empress just had to dominate every reality there was? Why she always wanted to master temporal manipulation?"

She stared hard into the girl's face, perplexed. But only for a second, because the next she understood.

"No, no… it can't be. No…"

"Sorry Max, but it's true." She turned around to face the storm, deliberately breaking their eye contact, as if unable to bear her or her reaction. "That Max, the Empress, is the one whom you've taken me from. She was raiding worlds, not because she lusted for power, but because she was looking for _me_, Max, not just any alternate reality version of me, but _me_."

There it was, the brutal truth, the confirmation. It was her who created all this, the ultimate starter of the cycle, the one who set it up and kept it running, forever damning them in an unbreakable circle. She did it by taking Chloe away, by keeping her selfishly for her own and caring not of the person who was supposed to have her, who _deserved_ her by not being a coward and making an actual choice. She was too selfish to even think of _herself_, the version of her that would be left picking up the pieces in a reality without Chloe, and that disgusted her. Never before had she even spared a thought for the Max whom she overwrote everytime she rewound, and now the victim had had enough of it.

She'd ruined her own chance, and rather than living with it she settled for ruining another's life to fullfil her own; in this sense, they were both as guilty.

"All that… it was my doing, wasn't it?" She asked again, acceptance freezing her voice ice-cold. The blue-haired nodded, not daring to look at her.

"So… how do we fix it, then?" She'd asked, not daring to nurture even the smallest flicker of hope.

"We _can't_, Max. Not when I'm still with you."

Silence reigned over the storm, and though in the distance they could see its catastrophic rampage, her ears registered nothing but hazy static. The truth was only a whisper away, and sooner or later she would have to come to terms with it.

"Then… I would have to send you home, wouldn't I?" She asked, and this time absolute tranquility marked the end of their discussion.

Before them, the storm raged on relentless, its calamity heeding the distraught and pain-strucken no care as they grieved for one another, one last time.

* * *

"Where's Chloe?" The Empress asked, and eventhough he really wanted to just answer the fucking question and be over with it, he simply _couldn't_, because he didn't know himself.

"I've said before, I don't know! The storm-

She backhanded him, and the sixteen-year-old, secured firmly to a chair with wrists bound and legs tied, could do little more than brace for the impact.

"We'll need a stronger method, apparently. Remember, you forced my hand on this. I would've spared you the pain if possible, had you not closed up like a clamshell and tell me what I want to know." She leaned closer down to him, voice dripping with malice and acrimony.

"How can you still be alive?" Sean asked, trying – and failing spectacularly – to keep his voice from trembling and betraying all his nervousness underneath.

"You kill a time-bender, and time undo itself to save her. You don't really expect something as trivial as that to stick, do you?" She replied, her face an enigma expressing nothing other than cold indifference. "Though you were lucky; other me was ripping open a time portal on her side, thus allowing you somewhere to go when the rewind kicks in. Otherwise, you would be just as clueless when it was all done, your memory taken away of a timeline never happened."

So that was how they were lost to the other timeline. _Other_ Max opened up a storm, the exact one he encountered the first night in the cave, and while _other_ him simultaneously plunge his blade into the Empress, the two storms opening at the exact same time bridged the realities together and aligned them in the midrealm, allowing for cross-barrier travel. Strangely, it wasn't half as puzzling as time-travel seemed to be on old movies that he'd watched as a child.

"So… when time rewound, you were safe inside your castle, without any of us in your way?" He concluded, in revelation of the new information that their rivalry temporarily forgotten.

"That, and with the ability to cross barriers at a whim. I need only to conjure the sphere, and the time-space continuum would be mine to command." She laughed, the maniac evil laughter so cliché with older movies that he had to repress himself from snorting our loud.

"What's so funny about that?"

"You're really asking me? I thought you were brighter than that, but turns out you're not half as sharp as I've given you credit for."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Seanie-boy, that I'm not crazy, or lusting for power, like you've always told yourself. That I'm every bit as calculative and patience as you've given me credit for, and that I'm not evil, ultimately." Once again, she punched the breath out of his lungs and pulled his head back by the gruff of his hair. Bending down, she rested her lips a good inch from his ears before whispering directly into them. "I don't want to kill your parents, Sean."

"Liar!" He snapped, but with his hands tied and firmly duct taped to the chair, there was little he could do other than writhed and frothed, as she continued to hold his head back. "You murdered them in cold blood!"

"I may have done so, but only because I wanted as least trouble as possible. Otherwise I would have to gather all the evidence against your father corruption, and let me tell you he's one nasty piece of work there."

"What are you talking about?" Sean asked, disbelief evident in his tone, aghast and raised.

"Come now, tell me honestly, at least you've noticed him at one point or another with some shady business, have you not? You were thirteen when it happened; you should've known something, or realized something was off. You just didn't want to admit it, but deep down, you always knew; your father was not the saint he was supposed to be."

Her every words sliced him open in painful slashes, but not because of the unfounded accusations, but because of the truth underneath, because of his own denial crumbling to ash. He already knew, but he told himself as long as he didn't speak about it, didn't tell anyone about it, didn't think about it, he could fool himself into believing it wasn't true. After all, he was only thirteen, not much more than a child with little knowledge of the world and its complicated ways. His father was the Emperor, the proud leader of their entire nation, and it was his job to keep them safe, fed and warm; that was the extent of his knowledge, of what he was _supposed_ to know, of what he _should only_ know.

But beyond that; nights of unrest, of a shadow creeping along the windows and into a secret passage somewhere, he knew. Younger Daniel always thought it was a monster, creature of the night emerging from nightmares to haunt them, but he knew better. The crooks and crevices running on walls and chambers, those Daniel had pointed out as funny-looking art; he knew was hidden mechanism. And the brown duffle bags he had accepted from strangers, what Daniel was told to be candies to spoil them, he knew was pure gold, was bribery in its simplest form, was favouritism; all the traits unfit of a nation leader, of an Emperor, of his own _father_.

He _knew_, everything, long ago; he just didn't want to see it. But now that he had, he couldn't unsee, not anymore. Nor could he pretend to live on in blissful ignorance.

His facial might have expressed it a bit too clear, because Max saw through everything. "So you do know, after all. It's funny how much you're willing to do for someone you love, huh?"

"You? Love someone? Don't make me vomit, witch." He regained his bearing relatively quick at the revelation of her personal life, but more likely at the prospect of diverting the topic from his tender past and the wound that was still sore.

Retrieving a metal tool, she waved it before his face as she spoke. "It's true, though. Of course, I wouldn't expect you to understand, but I'm positive you've seen my counterpart and her rather… how to put it? Say, _explicit_? – relationship with Chloe. I trust you to put two and two together while I heat this metal brand up a bit." The Empress walked to the fireplace inside his old living room, leaving him alone from behind the kitchen's counter to his own thoughts.

She always had some sort of a bond with Chloe, that much was certain. But he'd never seen it as anything more than platonic care; she was an efficient second-in-command, useful to her own cause, so she took extra caution to save the girl's life on many occassions. But with other Max and Chloe, they were literally glued together at the waist; even the blue-haired herself had refered to Max multiple times as her-

"Girlfriend?" He asked, shocked. It shouldn't have surprised him that much, but just the mere thought that cold, evil and malignant Empress herself was in a relationship with General Price brought shudder to his spines.

"Seriously? You're still as dull as ever, but that's the closest you can get to the truth anyway, I assume. Yes, I'm Chloe's girlfriend you might say, but not _her_. General Price was already a broken shamble when I first met her in that timeline; too broken by Max's abandonment that she couldn't lift a finger to fend herself off from a squirrel." Sean was shocked into silence. What she was insinuating… _she wasn't a Namarian?_

She didn't leave him long enough to muse over his silent question, however. "But I did what I must; I saved her, nurtured her back to the infamous assassin feared among Namaria, and made her my second because I knew her well enough to make sure she would stay up and guard my back like a faithful watchdog. But no, I don't love her; she was but a tool, a mean to an end, an eventuality not consisting of her broken excuse of a life, wasted."

Hearing her addressing the much entrusted General in such a manner shook him. All these times, all the mutual trust he'd seen blossoming between them… _all that was an act?_

"You see, I love Chloe, but not that one. I love the girl from my own reality, where you're sitting in by the way. Have you noticed you weren't exactly, well, _tangible_? You're only a ghost here; simply because you don't _belong_. This reality has its own Sean and Daniel, whom are still on their field trip to the national park, if my memory serves correct; oblivious of the tragedy awaiting them barely a week later."

So it was true; his greatest fear, confirmed. He wasn't back home, in Arcadia, or at least the Arcadia version where he'd originated from.

"And where's Chloe then?"

"You've already met her." She raised the searing hot metal brand to his skin, and kept it hovering just an inch from his skin. The heat radiating from the piece of metal almost forced him to scream, but he knew it was nothing compared to when it actually made contact with his body. "Think, Seanie-boy; you've only met two Chloes, and General Price is definitely not one from this modern setting, if her sword-welding combat preference was any clue."

It only took him a moment's deduction to connect the dots.

"You mean-

"Yes, darling. The Chloe you saw; that girl was mine. And all that I've done up to this point is to find a way to breach across reality, to become the superior Max, to pry her back from the thief's ungrateful hands, and to earn back what was rightfully mine when I chose her over Arcadia Bay." Then she closed the distance, searing his skin with hot, blistering pain as all his senses exploded; the pain overpowering common rationality and he started begging.

"Please, please stop…" He couldn't take it. Other him could, other him was conditioned to pain and torment, having lived through a life of hardship himself, but Sean retained nothing but objective memories. He did not possess the resolve to keep his lips shut, nor could he polish his own pride to surpass his pain limit. Fortunately, she deemed it enough to give him a short break, retracting the piece of metal from his skin. Try as he might, he could not fight off the smell of smoked skin registering on his olfactory sensors, or the fresh burnt still sizzling audibly on his forearm, from staining his cheek with tears.

"Don't be so hard on yourself honey, remember I'm doing all this for _that_ Chloe, not the one from Namaria, or even the throne of Burian's leadership. I am willing to do everything for _my_ Chloe, Sean, and I imagine you would do the same if Daniel was the one being kidnapped. Take solace when I tell you everything I've done to you or your family, nothing's personal. They were strictly necessary steps to bend the timeline to my will, to break open the integrity of time-space continuum, to open the rift of time itself. And I would go to any length, ruin one reality or countless others, condemn all the innocent lives it bore to damnation, to an endless cycle of perpetual suffering, if it meant getting Chloe back." She whispered the last part, bringing goosebumps all across his skin, before pressing the hot brand back to his skin again.

He screamed, but his own guttural voice now muffled by her hand pressed firmly on hip lips. After a minute, she retracted the instrument, letting it hover over his skin an inch or two. His burn was already deformed beyond recognition, but it was still as raw and painful as the first time he'd been branded, by a certain blue-haired rebel a whole lifetime ago. "Shush. Not too loud. The neighbors might question what all the sound is about, not that I give a shit anyway, but still. I present you two options: either tell, or take the pain."

He shook his head, indicating that he didn't know, that how could he possibly tell her something he himself had no idea about, but the girl took it as a symbol of defiance instead.

"Take the pain it is, then."

His scream filled the evening as the torment kept coming restlessly on his poor abused body until he could take it no more and passed out. But Daniel, heavily sedated in his bedroom only a wall away, was full awake and aware throughout the whole time. The poison running through his veins served to keep his power dormant, but not his consciousness, and he heard every of his brother's scream as the older Diaz vociferated his own torment in ear-shattering decibels. He had heard the sound, and had understood that his brother was being tortured, but was helpless to do anything to interfere, except for weeping, thrashing in his own blanket, biting down hard on his own lips and taking everything in.

When all the voices had died down, when Sean had finally given up the fight, when the girl had deemed him already tortured enough for the day, Daniel's sheet was wet with tears and crumbled with his own valiant effort at getting out, which suffice to say did not succeed. But he remembered though; committed every sound to mind, and promised himself never to forget the feud, not until he could make the woman suffer, until they could level the square and return the pain in dear value. He would remember this night, even if he didn't remember anything of a past lifetime they all did, even if he could no more undo what was already done to his brother than he could make the woman sorry for her crimes.

It mattered not to him, because he was determined to make it _right_.

Deep inside him, the wolf arose, the first time ever. He knew not what it was other than a primordial being, one capable of such monstrosity beyond what his nine-year-old mind was able to imagine. He knew not that his brother had one too, one very much as savage and wild as his own, and that if the demise of family had aroused his brother's, now it was the pain that called upon his own. He knew not it was part of their long-asleep instincts surging back to life, springing forth from dormancy by a certain wound deeper than any he'd known.

But he knew it was a result of his own helplessness, of his pent-up rage and frustration. He knew it burned as hot and intensely as the fire within him, and was powered by the same force that allowed him such otherworldly ability. He knew it had manifested the same way it had with his power, and that it was another mean for him to protect their territory, to protect the alpha in distress, to keep whatever tathered remnants of their broken pack back together. But more importantly, he knew it was eager to get its revenge on the woman, blow-for-blow, bite-for-bite, and to match her savagery with his own, not any less.

And that was enough for him to welcome it, embrace the hidden side of himself, rather than shying away and exercising fear of the unknown. Just the promise of revenge was enough to blur his eyes from all the unspoken danger, from the crazed wilderness gripping at his own sanity and threatening his own innocence, and a rage-driven Daniel could care even less. He was still under from the drug, but he was _pissed_, his muscles coiled, breath hitched, and eyes dilapidated, with canines sharp and growl rumbling deep in chest. He was prepared, and the moment the last of the drug wear out, allowing him just even a second's window of time, he would make her regret ever existing.

Time-bender and reality-altering be damned. He was the _godamn_ world-shifter, and he was eager to get his revenge.

* * *

"Hey, Max. Look at me." The girl had urged, silently, but she could not force herself to look back up. Realizing this, she placed a hand on her chin and pulling it up, ever so gently, ever to tenderly, just the signature specialty of Chloe's healing touch.

"Hey, you're not transparent anymore, at least in short spouts, so that's a good sign, right? Perhaps you can even hold steady enough to rewind yourself out of all this and fix everything, yes?" She tried smiling, but it came off more as forced than sincere or genuine.

"I don't get it, Chloe! How can I ever fix anything ever again? I won't have you this time! You belong here, with _her_, and I simply don't have you anymore." She exploded, outburst of tears and bellow marking her own desperation. She would have to send this Chloe back to her own time, a second prior to her own departure, just so that time would overwrite her, taking away all her memories and wiping clean all that they've been through the last week. She would become a blank slate, holding no recollection whatsoever of what had happened, but it was the only way other Max wouldn't notice the difference, the only way to fool the Empress into giving up the fight even before it had started. If she wanted to settle the matter and put it to rest once and for all, she would have to strike hard at the center of the cycle itself, preventing it from ever existing in the first place.

And since the cycle started with her misdeed, she would have to let Chloe go if she were to affect a change. But not as a temporary fix-it only to crumble at another falter of resolution or a disability of her mental. This time, whatever she did, it must be truly final, otherwise it wouldn't stick and wouldn't really matter. This time, there would be no take-back, no do-over, or no rewind; this time, she had to let time run its course, not because she wasn't strong enough to override it, but because she wasn't strong enough to go ahead and mess it up, just to open herself up to the inevitability of losing the girl all over again, and subjecting herself to the pain.

The same pain that had been torturing her from the beginning; the same pain that had been the cause, the motivation, and the push for her to commit the crime, to start the cycle afresh out of her own selfish desire. The pain that, no matter how many times she already had endured, never got easier.

"No, I just… can't. Don't expect me to do this, Chloe, no…"

"Hey now, you're not alone in this." She smiled again, and this time it served to boil her blood.

"How can you _fucking_ say that? You're the one to be blessed with ignorance, to have your memory wiped from you, to be returned to another Max, everything would work out in your perspective, don't you see? I'm the only one cursed with the knowledge, to be forced to remember everything! Losing you, letting you go, living on without you…" She trailed off, the last of her argument dying out to be replaced with broken sobs wracking her body. They bubbled up from the bottom of her chest, constricted painfully over her throat and escaped her charred lips as brief convulsion, effectively cutting off the rest of what she'd got to say. Though the need for such verbal explanation was barely necessary; they both knew Max couldn't let Chloe go, whichever timeline, whichever alternate reality and whichever consequences her action would have.

"No, I mean it, literally; you have someone." The girl placed her hands on Max's shoulders, grounding her back to reality and into the weight of her gaze. "You have _other_ me, someone who retains everything we've been through together up to this point, and even if I forgot, even if time overwrote myself, her memory would be intact, because she wouldn't be affected. You would have someone to remember, together."

In the wake of their ground-shattering revelation, the assassin had completely slipped her mind. "You mean General Price? For god's sake, Chloe, you know – you saw first hand how-

"And that is exactly how I know she wasn't evil, Max." She smiled, and Max gulped at the ungodly visual of the blue-haired; never before had she seemed so much more like a wingless angel. "I am her, in a way, and I understand her thoughts when I was put into her shoes. She did many wrongs, but she was misguided, blinded, and without aim; other Max took advantage of it. But she was exactly the same as me, and you'll understand. Just… give her a chance, for me, okay?"

"How can you expect me to give you up in exchange for a murderer, Chloe? Just… how?"

"We don't really have a choice, Max. When the Empress caught us in her temporal net, she… turned tails on her, _other_ me I mean. She… discarded her, like she didn't _mean_ anything, like all the times she'd risked her own life for you – _other_ you, for their supposed righteous cause, everything… it was as if none of them mattered anymore, Max. The girl is in pain, and she needs you. Just like how you had needed me, Max."

"But…" In her mind, a million questions rushed, each overlapping one another in their struggle to be vocalized. She wanted to ask when the memory-sync had happened, how other Chloe had learnt all this, and where she was, if she was even in the same timeline as them, and even then, the same time region as their own. She didn't dare re-enter midrealm after the latest ordeal, and as such the time sphere was out of the question, so her only power now would be the old-school rewind. But it could only be so useful when she was limited to barely a week, and that was she in her prime condition. Now though, she barely trusted herself to rewind past five minutes without ruining time one way or another. "But…"

As if seeing the uncertainty radiating off her own eyes, Chloe sighed and pulled her into open arms. There they remained, for a minute or maybe hour, as time was forgotten and all there ever was in the vast universe was the two of them and their unparalleled love. Breathing, her face nuzzled into the girl's neck, Max drowned herself in the scent of the girl she was about to let go, for good, committing the smell to a section of her brain she'd promised herself never to let fade away.

Chloe had promised to her once, that whatever would happen to them, even if her powers may not last, they would, forever, and together. That there would be no reality, no timeline or no world where they would spend the absence of the other contently, because there would be no way they could be happy without the other in their life. It was an obssession, maybe even an unhealthy one, but it was the specialty of their bond, something unique and privy only to them and their own. They wouldn't have it any other way, simply because they were Max and Chloe, one never existing without the other; their co-dependence a tandem with light and shadow, night and day, twilight and dawn. They mattered, but only in the stark contrast with the other, and together, they completed the picture, one of peaceful harmony and transcendent beauty.

"Hey, look at me." She called gently, and when Max looked up she saw only blue eyes that spoke of forgiveness, generosity and benevolence. "Do you love me?"

And that question was the last straw. Throwing all restrain to the air, Max launched herself at the girl, crashing her own lips into Chloe's plumb, red ones, deepening their connection in an everlasting kiss. Their hands scrambled all across the other's bodies, taking the memory of the other into their mind and inscribing their digits in twisted curvy, entertwined. Had circumstances been different, perhaps they would've taken each other right then and there, but a certain wave of translucent rushing over her body quickly returned them to their senses.

"Hey, Chloe? Maybe not now, huh?" Max had raised the awkward question, but it was understandable because she was even fainter than a flickering light at that point.

"You got lucky, hippie. Since this is our last time, I would make sure you can never walk straight again, if you weren't flickering like that. It's still a major turn-on, let me tell you, but just imagine you disappearing somewhere in between… urgh, it would be like bathroom sessions all over again." Her dirty talk brought to her lips a grin, and Max was surprised to find it was sincere.

"No, but seriously, find her, save her, and she'll save you. The Empress had mentioned it in passing, but she kept notes, Max. She knows something that would put an end to all this, once and for all. I have no doubt about it." Despite the grim foreboding of her words, Chloe placed a sloppy butterfly kiss on her forehead, and she couldn't help but giggle.

"Yes, mom. I'm gonna show her who's the boss now that she had no idea about Joyce's secret recipe, and you can behold the day Max Caulfield beat Chloe Price, to become the one true legend at pancake-making."

"Sure you will, Max. I have no doubt you will." Then she pulled her in for another embrace, and leaning into the touch Max felt herself fading away, knowing the power would save her at last moment.

"Oh, and one thing, Max. Can you be so kind as to tell her we sucks in dreadlocks? Like, seriously, if you mess up time again and we see each other again, I'll beat your ass if you let her wonder around displaying that shameful hair for the rest of the world to get the wrong impression of the beauty that is me." She heard the girl whispering into her ears, and she bit back a chuckle to raise her own reply, just in time for the rewind to kick in.

"I will, Chloe. I will."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

"Dad, I'm-

Sean snapped awake. He was standing on the porch to his home, albeit a second earlier than the last time he'd awoken, and the backpack was still a comfortable weight on his back. Looking at his own hand, he checked to make sure he was still tangible yet, which he was. _Good_.

Before this whole incident, Sean would've called himself out on being a lunatic nerd for believing in magic's existence, but after observing first hand, he'd learnt better. That if everything seemed exactly as it was in a memory some time ago, almost as if time had turned itself back, then time really had turned itself back, or more accurately Max had, somewhere. That secured him with the knowledge that at least the woman was somewhere in the same time region and timeline as their own, so they could account on her power to get them all out of there and back home where they were supposed to be. At least they wouldn't be stuck in this pre-incident timeline and wouldn't be forced to go through the living inferno that was to lose their father and run away like some fugitives, at least not until Max had returned them to their original timeline where they were, at least, supposed to.

No time to waste, though – he could worry about all that once they actually got out of the Empress's grip. Knowing what would happen, he needed to grab Daniel from his bedroom before his power grew into another miniature storm all over again. Sean ran full-speed into his brother's bedroom, to encounter just what he'd expected from his memory before the rewind; Daniel, lying on his bed, writhing this way and that, his messy hair even more intangible and unruly than what he thought was possible.

He had a suspicion, an untest theory if anyone will, and he was feeling particularly experimental. Unlatching the backpack on his own back, he spun around and threw it at the boy, hoping either Daniel was feeling forgiving or he was intangible, because only after the backpack had left his arm that he realized a sleepy-aroused Daniel with combustible telekinetic ability and feeling particularly grumpy after being woken with a backpack thrown at his face wouldn't take so kindly to any explanation Sean could possibly offer. Not without disintegrating him at first, and he meant it literally after he'd seen what the boy was capable of.

Luckily, the boy was incorporeal, and his backpack flew straight through the boy's prone form. Nothing out of his expectance, because the next moment it impacted against the matress, plopping the boy's pillow off the bed, and with the lost of his headrest effectively cut his fitful sleep short.

"Ugh! Wha- wher- huh?" He mumbled, voice still sluggish with sleep, but any remain of drowsiness left was instantly staved off upon the sight of him. "Sean!"

"Yeah, _enano_, your favourite brother waking you from naptime. Please don't break my neck-Ow!" He had opted for sarcasm, partly to annoy the boy to his senses, but mostly because he was feeling like a smug prick after his plan had worked out. Though he didn't expect the boy to rush at him and threw his hands around him, embracing the older Diaz in what had to be the strongest death grip that a teeny-weenie nine-year-old could muster.

"You're okay!" The boy had sobbed, his voice laden with ecstacy and relief. "She hadn't done anything to you!"

"Wait up, Daniel." He had a stinging suspicion he already knew what Daniel was refering to. "You remember her…?"

"Hurting you? Yeah, Sean. She drugged me so I can't do anything, but I could still hear your scream. It's horrible, Sean, are you-

"Hey, hey, I'm safe now, aren't I? Max rewound everything back. She saved me, and nothing had happened to me yet, at least chronologically. I'm intact, see?" He had to cut through the boy's frantic ramble with soft reassurance of his own, while drawing soothing circles on the small of boy's back, and as they held each other Sean had to force his own tears down. No matter how many memories of torture he'd watched from other him's viewpoint, nothing could ever prepare him for the actual chair, and he'd learnt the lesson well. He had no idea how other him had managed, but to him, being tied there, branded with the hot poker, have buckets of cold water splashed at his face whenever he was close to passing out from the pain only to be subjected to the treatment all over again… it was torturous. Not only was the suffering strenuous, it was also mentally taxing; he had mustered every grain of determination to cling on to sanity, but he was close to giving up, had it not been for the image of Daniel being incapacitated a wall behind, and the malignant promise that hurt worse than any metal brand that if he was to give out, the boy would be replacing him on the chair right after.

_Perhaps that was how other him had managed_, he realized. By using Daniel as a lifeline, a last resort, a final push of motivation, and by anchoring his entire world around the boy, dedicating the very fibre of his being to the boy's safety. Though he understood not why the wolf had not emerged to help him through it, like it had every other time; he dared place a bet it would only resurface whenever Daniel was directly in line of harm.

But all that suffering, he knew was only his own, that he was the only one to pay the price, and that at least he could afford. But even worse than that, his worst fears had just been confirmed by the boy's breathless utterance, by the tight arms winded around his legs, by the face nuzzling into his chest and drowning himself in the scent of his brother as if afraid of losing him, of forever forfeiting the chance to express his love. He'd remembered everything, just like the first time, and the only justification for his behaviour was exactly what he had feared most.

He was terrified, and Sean knew well it was for his safety and not even his own. That Daniel was no longer the same innocent carefree boy he was the beginning of that week, not even the boy he probably would become after Sean had told him the truth about their father's demise, whether sooner or later.

"Daniel… do you… blame yourself?" He asked, tentative, afraid of hearing the answer, dreading the one thing he knew was inevitable.

"I do, Sean. There's nothing you can say or do this time that can change that. Before, when Chloe had attacked you in surprise, I may not have had my power. I didn't even know of what I can do at the moment, so perhaps I can escape the blame for that. But this… I know what I can do, Sean." He looked up, staring into his eyes with large, black pearls and baring straight into his soul through every barrier of deception he may have put up against the rest of the world, that he knew whatever they confessed after would be sincere, from the bottom of their hearts. "I know I can break free, Sean, but… I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough."

"Come on, Daniel. You know that's not true-

"How can it be not true? I killed Chloe with an outburst! I brought down the whole cave with a thought! How can I not save you, unless if it meant I'm useless?" He exclaimed, outraged, tears streaming down his cheeks and eyes bloodshot. "I let you suffer, Sean!"

"No you didn't. You would've saved me if you could. I had no doubt about it, Daniel."

"You don't understand, Sean. I could! I know I could." His voice ended abruptly in a muted whisper, such a stark difference from the yell it had started out that Sean had to strain his ears to adapt to the sudden change of volume.

"What're you even talking about, Daniel?"

"I… I kinda have this… animal inside me, Sean. I know it's silly, but… I think the wolf story that you always told… it's true, to some extent at least. I think I'm a wolf, Sean." He said, looking into his face, and in his eyes Sean could only read worry, insecurity and fear. Probably of being dejected, being called silly, being made fun of, and being brushed aside, just like the same fear he had whenever he thought of talking to the boy about his own demons. He realized, with a shudder, just how alike they are, and that the whole time while he had been trying to conceal himself in hope of preserving the boy's innocence, all he ever did was take away someone he could sympathize with and talk to, forcing him – forcing them both – to deal with it on their own rather than in the supportive presence of a family who could've extended loving arms, willing ears, and understanding acceptance.

"Fear not, _enano_. We're the wolf brothers, and deep down we've always had the wolf inside our blood, giving us strength, protecting one another and watching our backs. I'm very much the same wolf as you are, and no matter what the wolf pack would keep each other safe, wouldn't they?" He tried offering a kind smile to ease the boy's uneasiness, and fortunately it worked.

"Really, Sean? But… what if we can't? What if _I_ can't?" _Like I had just failed to protect you_, his silent gaze had pronounced, and staring into those watery orbs he knew the boy was vocalizing his own fear, the helplessness of unable to protect his brother, of letting him get hurt. But it was also those eyes that reminded him of why he was fighting this battle all along, and with such conviction he had spoken that it was final to the matter.

"You can, Daniel. Just like me. We may fail sometimes, but in the end that only makes us stronger, and mightier the herd would reclaim its ground. We would always emerge victorious in the end, Daniel, just you and me, regardless of what may happen in between."

"You promise, Sean? That whatever happen, you would never leave me?" The boy said, holding his hands in his tiny ones and looking straight at his face, meeting his eye with his own unwavering stare, as if searching for any ounce of dishonesty he may have hidden inside his own promise.

"I promise, Daniel." He'd uttered, and to his own surprise he found himself sincere. Apparently taking that for its value, Daniel buried his face back into the fabric of his shirt, inhaling softly his scent, and nuzzling his own face into the boy's unruly raven hair he returned the gesture.

The wolf pack had just made a deed together; an unbreakable pact, signed by blood and vouched by pride of the feral wilderness. They would never go against their promise, even if it meant ruining the entire world for the other. No matter if it was selfish, if it was slef-centered; it was the way of the wolf, for themselves and their pack first before anything else that may come after, and Sean was okay with that if it meant keeping his brother safe and happy. Entrapped in the embrace, they let time run its natural course, perhaps for a minute or a whole hour, just remaining still within the confinement of the other's arms. They would take as long as was necessary to remind themselves of the other's safety and bask in the presence of the other, reveling each to one another for as long as it could last while they still could.

Because despite the promise, despite the steel determination, despite all that they've said and done, they knew all too well that the world simply didn't function that way, granting everyone their deepest desire and ensuring everything would turn out well. The instincts of the wolf, the call of the ancestors, and the foreboding intuition of fate itself guaranteed the pact, as soon as it was accorded, was one short-lived, bound to be broken eventually, without any possible alternative while their hearts were still beating, blood still rushing, and breath still warm.

This, they both knew, eventhough none of them were willing to admit it. This, they both understood was inevitable, and yet none was willing to accept. This, they both felt deep within the core of themselves and their very existence, but neglected anyway simply because it was too painful to bear.

This, the pact they'd formed in a hurry to reassure themselves, was a mere façade, one made up to fool themselves into blind belief. That it was only a mean to provide them with hope, with strength, and with the conviction, to move forward, to keep pushing on until the end for better or for worse. That it was just what it was and nothing more; a mere illusion, one they knew could never last, one that was simply too good to be true.

And that, they knew it would eventually end with one of them making the ultimate sacrifice, for good.

* * *

Just like every other time, activity trickled to a standstill around her, before everything started running in reverse. Chloe opened her mouth to speak again, but her backward speech made absolutely no sense at all, and Max knew better than to try and comprehend.

It'd only hurt more as she eventually had to let her go, anyway.

Soon, she was sitting up and pacing from the bench, which Max hazarded a guess was the short period of time it took for the girl to shake her awake. She chanced occassional glance between her probably prone, lying form and the storm, now still only a strong gust of wind early in its formation. Seeing her pace, biting her lips and furrowed brows, Max could tell she was very stressed out of the whole incident, nothing even remotely similar to the level-headed girl that had spoke reasons into her stubborn head and promised her everything would be okay barely minutes ago.

Max realized it was all an act, and shuddered. Not because Chloe was so damn good at it, or because she was so thoroughly convinced by it, that much she'd known about her best friend ever since they were children; but because she had only just realized how hard it must be for the girl to force herself to accept it, to act as if she was indifferent, even if only to alleviate the burden of her revelation and encourage her to do what must be done. She took the brunt of their tragedy, and hid her own pain well enough to spare Max of the overwhelming guilt she knew would stop her from doing it.

That only helped another teardrop to escape the corner of her eyes. Chloe'd loved her so much, she didn't even deserve it.

_No_, she deserved it. Chloe had attempted to hide it until she'd finally rewound, knowing the option to stop would then already be taken out of her hand. She knew there would be no undoing the deed after it had begun, and thus Max would still learn of the truth, would still come to bear with the pain and guilt, and would still suffer her fair share of the tragedy. Nothing mattered, as long as the rewound had already kicked in.

That was the thing with her. She was all-loving and full of forgiveness, but she was fair, and she understood what was necessary. Same as the lost of Arcadia Bay; she never wallowed in regret for longer than a few days before moving on, thrusting their ship forward and out of muddy water. Eventhough she was one with the power, Chloe was always the captain of their boat, taking charge of things and taking responsibility into her own hands. She took care of them, of their ship, and planned their route ahead while all she did was lie in her bunker, hiding under blankets and refusing to face reality or the weight of her choice. How they still managed to keep on running was all thanked to the girl, and now that Max was without her as an anchor, she didn't know what to do with her life anymore, other than drifting aimless between vast open ocean.

Chloe had stopped pacing somewhere between her silent musing and was now sitting by her side, a palm pressed against her forehead and the other gripping hard what she assumed was unconscious her's hand. The girl was shaking, which could only mean she was either experiencing the memory-sync, or was entering shock at initial revelation. Even now the physiques of the phenomenon escaped her comprehension; how it happened, between whom, and when it happened, Max had very few clues. But why it happened was what totally eluded her; she could not hazard even a guess as to what must have triggered the occurrence, other than a faint suspicion that it might have something to do with her rewind.

The girl's eyes snapped open, and she began looking around. Max figured it was the typical dumbfounded astonishment of someone being spat out of a temporal storm and was taking in their surroundings for the first time, which also happened to be the place where they'd left the timeline in a memory long, long ago. Max's own recollection of how she'd attained her was hazy at best, but as was the problem with time paradox any spouts of memory loss would only be temporary at best; this she learnt very well. Being spat back into where she was taken away forcefully was probably provocative enough a trigger to bring the girl's mind up-to-date with events transpiring in her timeline, and the look of recognition flashing over her face was another evidence.

Max should've at least asked her to know what had truly happened that day, but she was too late; the rewind wasn't stoppable whenever it automatically kicked in, and by the time most of the girl's recollection of the last half an hour was probably gone already. The hard part had yet to approach, but it was very close now, so Max braced herself for their inevitable separation.

Just as sudden, the girl flopped back on the bench, eyes squeezed shut as she slipped back into subconsciousness, before her entire body was thrown back into an invisible vortex in the air; Max assumed was the opening of the rift to midrealm. Like what she'd expected, her rewind wasn't powerful enough to actually summon the rift, so rather than falling into a portal into nothingness Chloe went the full arc of her momentum and landed on hard ground instead, awakening instantly with a growl.

The rewind had ended, and normal timeflow had resumed its predominance. Chloe was back where she was supposed to be, and not even a fraction of recollection of everything they've gone through together. She was practically a blank slate, the one always supposed to remain in this timeline with the Empress and not with her in the first place. Her rationality told her it would be the right thing to turn and walk away, to leave the girl lying on the ground knowing not any better of the role she'd played in all this, and that she should just leave her be to fullfil the course destiny had drawn out.

She couldn't force herself to do that, though. Not without saying goodbye, at least, even if she had to rewind it back anyway.

"Max! What-where-how-

The girl was sputtering words too quick that they overlapped one another, probably having a million questions burning in her mind at the moment. She was surprised to see Max walking long, purposeful strides at her, kneeled down beside her, and extended an arm for her to grab.

But when she did grab the outreached hand, she was even more perplexed as to why the girl had brought their lips crashing down into one another so violently, so suddenly, so _desperately_, as if it was the last time, as if they were never seeing each other again; a hurried, unspoken goodbye kiss, a thousands unconveyed messages, and a sea of love. But even more dumbstruck was a one-second-later Chloe, sitting under the rain, wiping her lips still sore from the pressure of a phantom kiss, without her girlfriend within sight.

What she didn't know was the same girl – who had so desperately committed an act against anything common sense had suggested – running away and not daring to look back, for fear that the sight of the girl would uproot her last ounce of conviction and hold her back for good. She was only a full yard away by the time Chloe had regained her bearings, but was already safely hidden between thick branches, and with the staccato of rain pellets crashing down on hard ground masking her rushed footsteps, was rendered almost invisible in the absence of sunlight even to the best trained of eyes. She ran, and ran, and still kept on running, until her legs tired out, until her exhausted body could carry her no more, until the fatigue bit deep into her bones and refused to let her move even an inch further, that she collapsed on the ground. Looking back up, she was already far away from Arcadia Bay, from the one girl who she loved with all her being, from the start of the cycle altogether.

An hour after their fateful parting, she was a good mile away, but her tears had yet to dry out. Nonetheless, she made no motion to wipe it away, allowing the stream on her cheek to roll all the way down as she bidded her last farewell to the girl whom she loved dearly, now only a fainting memory of a past lifetime. Just like Daniel, Sean, Joyce, Warren and the many people she had failed to keep safe despite her incredible power, she now had to let go one another, this parting most painful than any other because it wasn't just anyone – it was _Chloe_.

The storm outside may be harsh and unforgiving, but it bore little resemblance to the internal storm ripping her heart apiece and shattering her last hope. Max knew right then and there, that whatever had yet to come on their journey of much, much hardship, that had been the last of _that_ Chloe she would ever get to see again. The void, after being absent for so long, almost emerged from her tathered mental; yet, the promise she had made to herself time ago blocked it from recurring, and rather than letting numbness consume her she now must face the tragic end of their parting in full strength.

Without any guidance, other than Chloe's ambiguous reference to finding her counterpart, Max was lost, in all sense of the term, and combined with the lost of her only anchor truly had pushed the time-bender to desperate measures. She knew she should not do it, had no reason to, and with every ounce of her rationality forbidding her to, she almost complied. But in the end, she was weak, and just like many a time before, she lost control to her own impulse.

This time, the inexplicable force had drawn her to a specific destination; an address, a name, a house.

After days of tireless walking and bus-hitching, many thanks to her rewinding ability, she reached her target, a house on Lame Avenue. She knew not why she had gone there, nor where she had gathered the strength and determination to push forward while everything was already lost, but her feet had carried her all the way for a reason she was set on finding out why. Whatever left in that world for her to do was inside that house, that much she was certain, but she could not explain why nor how she had known it, and even more importantly what was it that she must do.

Though there was no need for silent musing or profound contemplation, for the very cause of everything had already stood before her.

"Hello, _Max_. I'm here to settle a score we had, I believe, on a certain moonless night the 36th of Pevraska, if I'm not mistaken?"

* * *

They remained entangled, limbs in limbs and body against body for an eternity that seemed so short, but in the end they had to move on. The older sibling was one to speak up first, verbalizing the inevitable, perhaps also masking his own regret in a sarcastic comment. "Can you let me go now? Why the sudden rush of love, _enano_?"

"Shut up. If anyone asks, this never happened. You tell, and I'll tell them all how you always hid the pizza box under your own shirt to savour the last slice on your own in your room."

"Hah, as if that scares me."

"And that the wet spot on your blanket when you'd taken it to the laundry yourself refusing Dad's help, was not water you'd spilt like you'd claimed. It was actually there only after a night when there are strange whiny sound coming out of your room-

"Alright, shut up. First, that's gross, you're not supposed to know that, and two, that's not even true."

"How about I tell that to the next person we meet and let them decide that for themselves, huh?"

"Alright alright, we never talk about this _and_ that again, ever. Are we cool?"

Patting his shoulder, they boy chuckled before leaving the room, leaving also an embarassed Sean behind with his cheeks flushed beetroot-red and his tongue tied for a good minute later, until he could muster enough strength back into his feet to force them to move to catch up with the boy.

"Hey, wait up!"

"Try to keep up, old man."

"Mmhrg!"

"Uh huh, is that old people's language for slow down and wait for me?"

Sean realized something was off.

"Daniel?"

"Yeah?"

"That wasn't me."

"Yeah, yeah. You're saying?"

"No, I mean it Daniel. I didn't utter that sound."

"Uh huh, and your point bein- Wait. What do you mean that sound wasn't yours? Who else was that supposed to be then?"

He shrugged, and this time as they stared at one another, each's lips unmoving and firmly sealed shut, they both heard the sound again, more distinct and frantic.

"Is that-

"There's someone else in our house." He'd concluded, and they fell back into absolute silence, the weight of his sentence sinking in slowly.

"Mmhrg!"

"I think it's coming from the basement." Daniel suggested, and he nodded. "Lead the way, then."

"Dude, seriously? After all this and you're still afraid of invisible monsters lurking under the shadow of our garage?"

"Hey, I'm only still nine. You're older. You go first."

Rolling his eyes for extra dramatic purpose, he sighed. "Fine. But don't you go running after me when the voice turns out to be behind you."

Just as he expected, he walked no more than three steps before Daniel shouted, small footsteps rushing to catch up with his longer legs.

"Hey, wait up!"

They descended the set of stairs in the silence company of one other, Daniel occassionally quickening his pace to brush his arm against his, probably seeking physical contact for reassurance. Sean was about to call him out on the pet peeve, but it turned out the boy's unfounded fear was actually an intuitive forewarning he should've heeded rather than brush aside.

"Mmhrg!" The voice had greeted their footsteps, and as they drew closer to the source Sean's blood ran cold as he realized it was a muffled moan, one produced by a gagged person. Beside him, Daniel was replicating the gesture, tiny hand clutching his tightly as they made the last set of stairs and around the corner-

-to be assaulted with the carnal sight of a girl, beaten to a pulp and tied firmly to a wooden chair – the same one he recognized was bound to him in a timeline came undone, and upon the specific piece of memory his wrists itched. Daniel wasted no time in observing her, though.

"Sean! It's Chloe, the one from Namaria! Look at her hair!" He pointed out, and following his pointed finger Sean saw tendrils of blue hair, braided into loose dreadlocks, now gathered in a low ponytail that cascaded down half her face and covering up her entire left eye. The color was barely blue rather than a combination of dark crimson – dried blood, caked into faded lightning blue, resulting in a dark grey that registered faint purple in the lack of light under their basement. Sean dared even say the colour matched her well, if he hadn't noticed the state she was in.

She was still tathered in her full-length hood, but the piece of garment already mangled beyond recognition that it fared better as an old rag, belonging somewhere under the makeshift bed of a homeless and not on a person. Underneath he could make out the shiny reflection of metal armor, though by the look of things she dared say it did not perform very well its purpose. The girl's face and practically every inch of her exposed skin was covered in bruises, in various shades of green and purple, neither looking very healthy or painless for that matter. Though there weren't any fatal wound, lacerations adorned her face in form of superficial cuts and gashes that no doubt was every bit as painful as they seemed to be. Some was half-healed, but most was still leaking, and though none was serious enough to leave permanent damage he learnt by her unfocused pupil and agaped mouth that all the afflictions though tiny was adding up, and was clearly taking its toll on her frail, slim form.

It wouldn't even be a full lie to say she'd just been straight to hell and back, with how terrible she looked. Somehow, an inner voice told him that wasn't entirely too far off from the truth, and having a taste of the Empress's personal touch, he could sympathize with the woman.

"We have to kill her, Sean! She's on the same side with the Empress!" Daniel had exclaimed, extending an arm to strangle the poor girl, and what frightened him was his completely rational mentality. _He was doing it intendly_, he realized, and almost on reflex he shot an arm out to grasp at Daniel's own.

"Stop, Daniel. She'd been through enough."

"But Sean-

"I said no." He knew he was being the biggest hypocrite of all time when he said that, but he wasn't going to let Daniel kill everyone he deemed a possible risk to them. He hadn't forgotten about all she'd done to them, but by some miracle he managed to exercise enough restrain to lunge at her, partly due to the sorry state she'd already been in, and his rational mind told him to give her a chance and at least hear her out. "Untie her mouth."

"Sean!"

"I'm serious, Daniel."

The boy looked back at him, his own eyes wide and filled with confusion, but mostly disbelief. He had no other choice but to hold steady his own gaze, stern and reprimanding, until Daniel wavered.

"Alright, fine." He grouched, still not entirely satisfied, but relenting for now. With a flick of his hand, he removed the gag from Chloe's mouth, and like a lifeless doll her head plopped down, neck bent at an angle indefinitely uncomfortable to the human anatomy. Sean idly wondered if she even felt that, however.

"Hey, hey. Look at me. Who did this to you? Tell me." He approached her, cautious. The girl seemed not to notice him altogether, head still lowered and eyes still squeezed shut, but her lips moved, and straining his own ears Sean picked up a faint murmur, something along the lines of what they're doing here.

Daniel seemed to have better hearing than him, however. "What do you mean? You're invading our house, and Sean might have let you live, but I'm not that forgiving. Any wrong move, and you'll face the wrath of my power."

"Yeah… right. Look at me, boy. Do you… do you seriously think… that for one moment," she paused, taking a breath, the short labour of uttering a few words seemed too taxing for her quick-dwindling strength, "I can pose… a threat to you and your… your brother?"

"Who've done this to you?" He asked instead, not allowing the tension to build up enough for him to snap her neck. "Who can possibly do this to you? Aren't you supposed to be the greatest spy of Namaria?"

"I wish… stabbed in the fucking back… by the only one… I thought I can ever trust…"

"You were betrayed by the Empress, aren't you?" Sean pierced her broken narration with Max's earlier mention. "She threw you away after you reached this timeline, didn't she?"

The girl looked up at them for the first time, her eyes settled on him, and as it flickered open Sean saw the uncanny reflection of the other Chloe, not just because they were exact replicas in outer appearance, but in the manner they carry themselves. Her eyes glinted, and something about it reminded him of his own envy for whoever had beaten his record at a hard track, the gaze of evaluating someone better than you and acknowledging their worth. "You… you were tortured too… weren't you?"

"I was, by none other than your Empress herself, and I bet it is safe for me to assume it was her who had done this to you." Daniel looked at him with mouth wide agaped, confusion perplexing his expression.

"Don't be surprised, boy. I'm… not as illusional about who she really is now." She gathered a breath, as if to compose herself, and it worked miracle apparently because the rest of her utterance was much more fluent. "When you left, pulling me into that void… I never arrived at the other side." When they both nodded their aggreement, she continued. "I was held back from the current of the storm, by none other than her."

"Max? I mean, the Empress." Daniel suggested, and she nodded. "You mean in that in-between plane of nothing?"

"It's called midrealm, or at least she refered to it as such. And yes; she trapped me in her own bubble, the time sphere or some similar bullshit." She huffed, before shaking her head, as if to dissipate the drowsiness gripping at her own exhaustion. "After she pulled me into her time sphere, bitch felt like questioning me of all sort of stuffs."

"What stuff?" Daniel voiced both of their curiosity, and he nodded for her to continue.

"As I said, all sort of stuff, but it was mostly retelling the events of the last two years, and especially the short detour to Arcadia – other Arcadia, I mean – if you must know. She pried them out of my mouth when I grew tired of playing her time-playback-recorder, and so I snapped. She, of course, with the patience thinner than a strand of hair, got pissed; thus you see me here, now."

"Wait, I'm still at a loss here. What do you mean you grow tired? I thought you're like, her number one worshipper?" He raised his own question.

"Well, I was, until I learnt of what future me had already learnt. And let's just say she isn't the person I've always imagined her to be." She'd avoided the topic, but Sean could read the second-long wince flashing across her face. He knew there was more to the matter, and made a mental note to ask her about it later when they weren't in such a short of time. "So, what else do ya wanna know?"

"I dunno, say, everything, told in details?" Daniel had demanded, but a wave of transparence flashing over them both had him changing his mind. "Or perhaps later. Now you're gonna help us get outta here."

"Hey, why're you fading like that? You look like, well, I dunno, something that flickers?" She snorted, and Daniel crossed his arms, a pout on his lips. "Oh come on, at least untie me before you expect me to run anywhere with you, huh?"

With another flick of his hand, all of the bound holding her in place were gone. "Whoa, that's convenient. Wish I had that."

"Shut up, you're not the one fading out of existence. You don't get to compare who's luckier, and for the record I don't have power either." Sean ended the argument, helping the girl to her feet, which she appreciated greatly. Judging by the disaproval frown on Daniel's face, the nine-year-old most likely would detest if there situation hadn't been one of life-and-death importance. "Lead the way, then."

The three of them, one underage child, one sixteen-year-old teenager dragging along a limping blue-haired made their way up the stairs and back out of the house-

-to welcome the sight of the two Maxes, locked in a stare-down with both their hands outreached, fingers curled and eyes intense. Sean could practically see the sparkle of fire flickering between their interlocked gaze and the twisted, abnormal flow of time as it switched from between their fingers, hesitant as to which command to heed. Though when they moved to intercept, time froze around them, locking their bodies in place as they were helpless to watch the fight transpire.

* * *

_**Author's** **note: **_I apologize for keeping you all waiting for so long. The reason for the large gap in between my updates is, to be put simply, the most gigantic of all writer's block. Rather than pushing through it and coming up with acceptable updates, my perfectionist self demanded that I take some time off to rekindle my passion for this ficlet, before resuming the hard work. I promise, I will never abandon this, nor any other of my fics, as long as they still haven't come to a proper ending. Until then, updates will properly roll even slower and less frequently, but be guaranteed they will come, whether sooner or later.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

"You…" Her accusation fell silence, not because she ran out of filthy words to assocciate with her counterpart, but because a wave of transparency rushed over her, disrupting her voice.

"Someone's not faring well with the timeline, I see." Other her smirked, and in that moment she wanted nothing more than to wipe that smug grin off her face with a foot in her mouth.

"What've you done?"

"Oh, so now you're the victim? Funny, because in my perspective I recall having Chloe torn away from me even after I've made the _fucking_ choice a coward just couldn't make." She grouched, venomously, and Max found herself at a loss for words because what she was saying was completely true. "You can't accept the _goddamn_ outcome and try pulling all sorts of stupid stunts to change it, but instead you fucked up your own timeline. And yet you decided to pluck her away from another as a replacement, as if she's a _fucking _thing. Well, news flash, she isn't buyable via some convenient store, but is rather an actual human being with thoughts and emotions, and look what you did when you decide to photojump her away anyway; you overwrote her memories from the time difference, taking away her choice and forcing her to accept living a life as another Chloe's replacement, only to fill in the spot of the girl whom foolish Max had lost."

She knew she was losing the moral high ground if they were to dwindle any further on the topic of her own deeds, so she diverted. "What's so much better about you, huh? Taking your pain and anger out on an entire reality? These people in Namaria, they're innocent! They have nothing to do with this!"

"The hypocrite has spoken. Don't you think I'm every bit as innocent as them until you forcefully steal her away from me? Don't forget that you fucked up countless of realities for your own pastime, and yes, I know that, because this one is another one you destroyed." The other spoke, not even blinking once, and she realized everything she'd accused her of was entirely the truth.

"What do you mean?"

"You think they're only one-sided? They're a portal Max, thought you should've known that by now, and portals work two ways. You seal the opening from your reality shut, but don't you think about others where the storm lead to? Not every Max is always there, awaiting for your cue to seal it shut before it could do any damage. Do you ever stop to think about what would happen to your own world were you to fail at sealing it up, Max? What would happen to many other realities where the storm had opened up to, if nobody closed it in time? Just for one second, can you stop being so selfish?"

"Hey, how can you be so sure about that? You're just the same as me; opening portals and jumping all over the place. You're the one who sent Sean and Daniel here to my timeline in the first place." She desperately brought up the boys, trying to win back the argument. What a wrong choice of words, as it would've seemed.

"But then again, they work two ways, Max, and to open one requires the handiwork of both; you cannot deny you were taking a shot of a tropical beach that afternoon, because the storm needed something on the other side to be truly connected. I made myself learn all that, Max, because I know I'm not the first time-bender, that I'm nowhere near as powerful as you, the one of us who started it all. Unlike someone who seems to think they were given their power to play god, I actually had to _work_ to become one. The universe doesn't always center around you, Max, and you're far from being the only one with such power."

"You- we're not gods. You should know that by now."

"Yeah? At least I'm calling it for what it is. Look at you, sitting in judgement over me while you're the one who made me this way."

"I made a mistake! And I was weak! I couldn't let her go, but in my desperate last straw to keep her back I ruined everything, I admit. But at least I'm not doing anything on purpose, like how you ruined Namaria!" She exclaimed, outraged. She'd lost her calm, and the other girl, apparently only awaiting for such an opportunity, jumped at her words, eager to get her own response in, a devillish smirk adorning her lopsided grin.

"Yeah, right. Your not doing anything on purpose makes you entirely innocent, after everything is said and done. You can't fix everything. Max, even with the best of your power. The damage would have already been done nonetheless."

"But..."

"No 'but', Max. Things have already been done. I did what I must, because the timeline, because the world, because _you_, was unfair to me. And I care not that my actions brought down another world; after all, it was already a corrupted nation, a lost cause from the beginning, and even the Chloe of that reality was just a mess after that Max had died."

At the look of surprise on her face, the woman laughed. "You didn't even know that, did you? We time-benders, thought to be immortal beings incapable of death, all that was just myths. While it is indeed true that any mortal wound would never harm us, not without time undoing itself to save us, such was impossible in a place and time where they both cease to exist."

"You mean other Max died in midrealm?"

"Pretty much, which was actually the reason as to why a storm had been opened to Namaria and had pulled me there in the first place even before I knew of its existence. That's what you call it, the midrealm, too? I guess we really are variant versions of the same biological makeup, then. Though I'm still three years of memories older than you, though."

"What do you mean?" This time she was thoroughly lost. The other girl sighing and face-palmed at her incompetence almost served to boil her blood, but for the sake of learning everything she hadn't known – which was practically everything – she held back.

"Oh, for being the first of us all, you sure are clueless. We are cursed with knowledge, Max, that you already knew. But we can still be overwritten by our past self, just like anyone else; whether or not we can carry physical belongings back with us is the full extent of what we could truly bring through time. Tell me, Max, if time rewinds to save you from a wound, wouldn't it disappear?"

"Yeah, but I thought it healed-

"Healed, my ass. We were overwritten by our intact past selves, and had it not been for our unique ability to retain memories we would forget everything after, just like everyone else around you. When you rewind, Max, you don't just reverse time; you fold the very fabric of time back under the sleeve of a past section and let them overlap each other, the past always superior to the present would gain supremacy. And that's not the extent of my knowledge, Max; there's so much more to learn and master, if you had bothered to make the damn choice and seriously stop taking your power for granted."

"How did you learn all this?"

The woman continued, not heeding her question any care. "I ended up in Namaria through a portal – a storm, if you will. After you photojumped and rip her from my arms, leaving me as the only one in my reality to be able to even _retain_ memory of a Chloe Price while to everyone else in the town, including her own mother, she was the rebel who skipped town in her teenage years, I was broken. At first I thought I'd gone insane, making up an imaginary best friend in my mind and unable to let her go, but I soon realized it was another lie right the moment I found a picture of us on that last Vortex club party together in my pocket. So, just to make sure it came from the same camera as mine, I picked it up and took a shot. It ripped open a vortex, simultaneous with the one born from Namaria Max's demise, and me, still doubting my sanity to trust in my power, could not seal it close. So I was pulled across, into the bed of a Price who was still devastated after her girlfriend had promised to return after a long trip to a faraway land, and disappeared forever instead. The opportunity was presented to me, so I took it and became the girl she so desperately needed, winning her absolute loyalty. Ever since then, she'd been a pretty faithful guarddog, I'd say."

"Wait… you're saying… Chloe, the one from Namaria, she… all this time, she thought you were _her_ Max?"

"Pretty much. I think deep down she always knew, but pretended not to. It's bizzare to what extent people are willing to go to fool themselves into believing in a lie, spun too deep to be recognized. Chloe's only human, and human are just that, Max, mortal beings; to them life is short, they could not cling on to pain for long, and they are blessed with forgetfulness. We, though, are not that fortunate, and as people forget and move on, we simply don't. That's the irony of our power, Max; it helped us dwindle longer in the past, when we are already unable to move on. It's in a sense the perfect punishment for those who coward out of making choices, like you are now and like I once was, it trapped us in an endless cycle of our own making, with no way out even with the powers we were given." Eventhough she tried hard not to agree with the girl, she felt exactly the same.

"Anyway, I was soon to learn that the storm brought me there and that it could be summoned through the camera, but try as I might I couldn't understand why jumping into the storm couldn't take me back home, at least not until I develop the two-sided connection theory yet to be proven true for another three years. In the meantime, I gotta survive, and somewhere in between I realized, the impulse of our power, was million times better than Chloe can ever be."

"No…" She muttered, realizing where it was going, because she herself almost dwindled down on that same path had it not been for the boys' timely interference in her path of self-destruction. The Max before her wasn't so lucky, and she was fundamentally her, had she drowned in her own void for any longer.

"It's the rush of using it and mastering everything, Max, I knew you enjoyed it too, everyone of us does. I started using it more frequently, at first out of necessity, but soon out of the mere pleasure of it. And it felt _good_, Max, it was incredible. I knew I was hooked, but in a good way; it helped me exercise it more often, improve my own limit and bring me a step closer to finding my Chloe. I needed an excuse to use it, so there came the overhaul of Burian, but soon after I realized something."

"What?" The other woman raised a brow, amused, and it took her a whole minute to realize it was at her own mouth slightly ajar in wonder.

"Whenever I interfere with a major historical event, it was as if the timeline knew itself was tampered, and my power grew stronger, as if telling me to go back and undo it. Instead, I ruined Namaria even worse, enjoying every bit the boost of power, silently brooding and awaiting the day I finally get my revenge on the one who'd taken my Chloe away."

Something still didn't add up to her. "But… I came back to mess it up on that night, didn't I? How can you still be normal when-

"Oh, silly Maxine. Who told you I'm normal? I'm the overwritten version, the one you helped by encountering me on that night when I was supposed to infiltrate the Diaz manor. You made me realize that the event of crossing through realities, that it wasn't a one-time thing, and that it was possible to achieve not only through the storm, not just through waiting impassively for another Max at the other end to rip open a portal on their opening, but also through actively conjuring the time sphere. That alone gave me hope, and see the irony there? Everything about our power was about hope, the trigger being the lack of, and the key being the splendor of. That was how I first traveled, Max. You know where I first go?"

"Where?" She already knew the answer by the time it left the girl's lips, though.

"Your reality, of course. I looked for Chloe, found her, and convinced her to come home with me. But she forgot everything, and when I took the effort to explain everything to her, she _fucking_ refused, Max, she chose you over me, saying you needed her more than I do. That by seeing me healthy, powers growing, and actively fighting a battle for justice on an entire reality away, she knew her leaving had done more good than bad. She said all that without even sparing a thought for all that I've been through, all because of your pathetic ass who couldn't even conceal their own weakness to her observant eyes. All the time, Max, did you even know that Chloe looked at you from afar, not daring to intercept whenever you burst into tears for no apparent reason?"

Her shocked silence was all the confirmation the other girl had needed.

"So I left her right there, deeming the girl not deserving of me and my true potential; besides, she was barely worth a fraction of the pleasure born from each rewind. I left, and went directly three years later instead, where you were supposed to be, but found myself blocked. You know why?"

"Because we weren't meant to cross path, one way or another." She said, half expecting the girl to flick her off due to her ridiculous idea, but also half awaiting a praise for her observation.

"Indeed, Max, except only that you're the special one, the first of us all, the only who's capable of reaching through that barrier. You came to me and intercept me in that night gave me the idea, to lure you into my trap and back to the reality where you'd started it all. I had learnt, Max, that it had to be you, actively seeking out Arcadia – that's what our world was called by the way – and travelling through midrealm in the sphere; it would be the only way to cross the barrier, for us both to exist in the same timeline without one overwritting the other. So I planned everything down even to the smallest details, my initial death, the storm opening at the same time as yours in that afternoon, sending the boys to your world, timing it right so that you'd came back for me, ruin things up and kill the boys. I knew it would fill you with guilt, and being the pathetic weakling that you are, you'd bring them back home, just in time to be sidetracked by the storm I opened up here."

Denial gripped at her sanity, and Max found herself screaming. "But the boys… they told me themselves, they weren't dead!"

The other girl's face bore an expression of mock sympathy, and in that moment Max truly understood what it meant to despise someone bad enough to commit homicide. "Alas, they told you so, didn't they? Did you ever truly believe for one second that they didn't die, but was overwritten in peace, Max? Were you seriously that dellusional?"

"No…" She couldn't believe in her own ears.

"Oh yes, Max, you've done it, killed the boys, just like how I've killed all those people in Arcadia Bay all those years ago – now, if you will, we're literally standing at the same point in chronological order. Trust me, it gets easier after the first time, and soon it'll become just business, nothing personal. Though I knew it was necessary, because the feud between us? It's nothing _but_ personal, Max, and now I'm gonna pay you in full."

She lunged, and Max was defenseless; she took the first blow to her abdominal region in full strength and was knocked staggering backwards for a few feet.

"But I returned Chloe back here! I let her go, I rewound her past the point where I photojumped! I put her exactly back where past you had needed her! That should've fixed everything and undone all this!"

"And that, I commence you on your attempt at slavaging the wound, at trying to remedy the issue and facing it rather than hiding away like the coward you've always been. But you're too late; I've already become what I am now, and there's no undoing anything time itself had done on a time-bender. You taking Chloe away may have been the cataclysm to all this, but I was hardened by becoming the Empress of Namaria, and that was my own doing, my coping mechanism, as oppose to the void that you had developed yourself. Sometimes there are wounds that simply _can't_ heal, Max, and I believe you – we – know that better than anyone."

Taking her speechless gaze as a cue, the girl continued.

"We reverse time itself, and we couldn't save the girl whom we love, why's that? We blamed ourselves, did we not? That though we were given such great power, we failed to do even the simplest of things. I did so too, until I stopped feeling altogether and let the void consume me whole; that's when I realized I've always been meant to become the Empress, Max. Perhaps not in the first place, but after everything that fate, that _you_ had done to me, it was what had become of my path, what I had been _made_ to be by the circumstances. I was what the world made me, Max, and I only returned everything in full favour, including the feud between us that has been lacking closure for so long already. This may be personal, Max, but that doesn't mean it isn't justified."

When she remained still, the woman advanced.

"Now that I'm here, you should speak your part, and quick, because once you're over, the real fight will begin. I've made extra effort to set up a time anomaly around us; nothing would budge as long as it stood, and it shall remained for as long as we're both in the same world. So either you beat me or I beat you, there's gonna be no stalemate or rematch after today. This day, it would be final, and I'm going to end you where time cannot interfere. Your death would be at my hand, Max, and trust me when I say I'm gonna take pleasure out of it."

When she put it like that, she had no other option. "Then it is final, because for all the sins you've committed to the boys, to Namaria, to everyone you've harmed in your tyrant rise to power, today you will pay dearly for everything. Mark my words, and I don't care how touche that sounded like. Show me the best you've got."

"Oh yeah? Someone's still getting cocky even in their last moment. Fine, have it your way then. Like the old would've said, bring it on."

They clashed, time trickling down to a standstill.

* * *

Everything happened in slow motion before Sean's very eyes.

One moment earlier, they were standing a few feet apart, exchanging words and talking, albeit a bit harsh. A second later, they were lunging at one another, grabbing at hair and delivering blows after blows at exposed skin. He couldn't tell the two of them apart as they were exactly alike, but he could see one clearly losing and the other clearly gaining – whichever Max that was, holding the other's neck in a death grip and unleasing punches after punches to the other's covered face. He knew by the look of things, the one underneath wouldn't last much longer if their current predicament were to last a bit longer.

Suddenly, they were separated, picked up by the gruff of their necks, and he knew without a doubt it was Daniel's doing. Perhaps their physical embodiments were frozen in time, but the boy's power was seemingly unaffected, as was evident with the two identical women now floating mid-air and a good few metres apart from each other. One of them seemed relieved to notice the three of them, but the other only stared wide-eyed in aghast. A flash later, he toppled forward, his body free to move and no longer under the freezing hold of time. Aside him, similar grunts from Daniel and Chloe told him they followed suit, brought forward by the sudden rush of kinetic energy returning and losing grip of themselves to the hold of gravity.

"Ah, my bad. I did not take the boy's power into account." One of the Maxes spoke up, and he recognized by the dialect that it was the Empress. "Allow me to deal with the interference, then we'll resume shortly."

Sean had heard her saying, and he knew she was about to do something, but he wasn't fast enough to stop her, neither was Chloe on the boy's other side. No one was fast enough to stop a time-bender, because she needed only rewind her way across the empty field to reach them a blink of an eye later, and another followed seeing Daniel's lifeless body on the ground, neck twisted in an unnatural angle.

She'd killed him, snapped his neck like a rag doll, without even a second thought.

But even before he had time to process the loss, to let it sink in and emerge the inner wolf, other Max had already undone it. The rewind was brief, and coming out of it he saw her apprating in the Empress's direct path to the boy. She bumped into the girl, using her entire body as the last barrier between her and him, surprising the other and bringing them both stumbling a few feet across the ground.

Daniel, experiencing the first rewind back from death, was still standing shocked and gasping; beside him, Chloe was holding his shoulders and calming him, all senses of hostility forgotten. Perhaps it was indeed truth that she had changed, and her actions had earned a little bit more of his credence, even if barely. He would at least give her another chance, he decided.

Back to the time being, he was the only one without anything to do by that moment, but he wasn't hesitant; the rewinds saving his life on many occassions before did well to prepare him for such an occurrence like that. He didn't even flinch when he stood up, bolted to the rolling girls and pushed Max aside, sat on the girl with both his thighs pinning hard her arms to the ground, and strangled the Empress under his own arms.

"Sean! Don't kill her!" Other Max had yelled out, but he had no intention of doing so.

"I'm not! Daniel, now!" He called out to the boy instead, who, at the mention of his name, was startled back into reality. Taking everything into his eyes, he was quick to assert the situation and adapt; raising his hand, he gripped the girl's neck from under his own arms and pressed hard on it, freeing his hands.

"Here! Catch!" Chloe, only having just recovered from her sprawled position on the ground, pulled a shiny instrument from under her cloak and tossed it. As it flew in the perfect arc across the air and into his arm, he saw it flying backward at the last moment, but only realized later that it was the Empress's rewinding, cut short by Daniel tightening his telekinetic hold a bit more. The small instrument resumed its trajectory and ended right in the open palm of his hand, revealing itself to be a syringe.

"Stab her in the neck!" He'd heard somebody yelled, but he needn't be told twice as he plunged the sharp needle into the girl's exposed jugular, emptying the whole pump in one go into her bloodstream. Under the weight of his body, the girl gave up the fight, strength bleeding out of her struggle, until it died down entirely and the woman lay unconscious on the ground.

They did it. They've beaten the Empress and subdued her.

"She's down! We did it!" He heard Chloe's victorious cry, and he mimicked the call of triumph with one of his own. "Woohoo, Daniel, we did it! The Empress's under our control!"

"Good job, by the way." He'd heard Max chiming in. "That injection, was quite a quick wit. How did you know-

She froze mid-sentence when she realized who it was under the dark cloak, scrambling to her feet and dusting off her garment. Noticing the tongue-tied girl standing awkward, she waved a hand. "Um, hi? You're Max, the one from Arcadia – the same one where these boys came from, right? I don't think we've really met in person."

But when the silence stretched on and Max remained frozen in place, the girl retracted her gesticulating arm. "Uh… I guess you're not feeling exactly forgiving today, huh? Well, for what it's worth, I still remember what your Chloe remembered, so…" She trailed off, expectant, but Max still hadn't spoken a word in return. The air was tense, perhaps even rivalling the Maxes' stand-off, and as Sean was sucked into the confrontation he knew not of Daniel silently creeping behind their turned backs, to the prone form of the Empress.

"This is for everything you've done to us…" The boy muttered, and the voice was almost too soft and subtle for him to register. He still did, though.

"Daniel! What're you doing? Stop!" He'd freaked out when he saw the girl's body floating a few feet from the ground, held aloft by the boy's outreached hand, and similarly behind him he heard Chloe's frantic footsteps rushing to intercept. They had celebrated too early, taken their guards off too soon, and none of them had expected Daniel's act of spontaneity to put all their efforts in jeopardy. He could not hear anything from Max, but he knew the woman was calling upon her power to rewind the boy back from ruining their only feat, and probably preventing them from pulling the same stunt ever again, seeing that the girl would always remember and always be prepared the next time.

She was too late, though. They all were.

A sickening crack ran out, and the girl's severed head flopped lifelessly back on the ground, crimson blood still sputtering out of the decapitated body that followed soon after. Around them, violent wind started whipping, and in the next instance the Eye of the vortex was formed right ahead of where they were standing, above the body of the Empress. Recognizing this for what it was worth, he grabbed the boy's hand and started running. In the corner of his eye he saw Chloe also making her evacuation and Max following short after, hands outreached and fingers curled as if to undo the storm back into non-existence, but with the memory of other him he knew they really stood not a chance at escaping time's relentless claws.

It grew fast into a huge typhoon, and by that point they stopped bother trying to outrun something they knew beyond doubt was simply impossible. Max grabbed Chloe's hand, who clutched at the nine year old whose shoulder he was still latching on to firmly, and as familiar blue lines spiraled around them he knew they were departing from reality again, letting the girl slip right from between their fingers.

They disappeared into the storm, and so did the body of the girl still lying on the ground as time began unraveling itself.

* * *

Max came to her senses gently first through the soothing smell of damp earth and floral scent, but became painfully aware a second later due to the immense pain of the worst headache ever hitting her like a freight train in full speed, in what seemed to be an attempt to rip her skull in halves. Though with the amount of pain she was enduring, even that was an understatement; her skull was being fractured in at least four separate pieces or more, if the groan involuntarily escaping her lips was any indication.

"Ugh… my head." Max muttered, hands gripping tight into her scalp as she sat up, or at least attempted to, before the pain of her mirgraine forced her to stop at once. Honestly, it wasn't the worst pain she'd ever endured, but it was damn close to it, and either way she envy feeling neither. It was almost as if she'd exerted herself all over again and her brain was reminding her that she was only human, but it took another moment for all of her recent activities to rush back and catch up with her.

_Ugh._ Perhaps she really had exerted herself, for all she remembered was time-jumping, reality-jumping, and jumping both. And bringing a few nosy passengers with her as well, who were as useful as the spare skin on her elbows. Seriously, if she were stuck on an endless adventure across the time-space continuum, at the very least she deserved to be accompanied with the best of both worlds, and she meant that literally. Despite Chloe being very much an elite spy of Namaria and Daniel being an entire force of nature on his own, the combination of them somehow neutralized their usefulness, and gave birth to an age-old rivalry that resulted in incessant bickering which potentially could turn into an outright bloodshed at the first chance they'd got. And by that she meant at any moment she took her eyes off them and tend to her own _fucking_ business for one second, one _goddamn_ second only.

"Ugh." Another wave of nausea assaulted her, almost on reflex she doubled over and started dry gagging, until bile rose at her throat and its bitter tang registered on the back of her tongue. Even then, she made no motion to hold back the flow as the content of her empty stomach emptied itself onto whatever unfortunate being that was residing underneath her leg at that moment.

Said being vocalized its discontent at being the dump, alerting her of its intelligence consciousness, and not a second too soon because it managed to dodge the second wave of bile attack pouring from her mouth. "Yuck, Max! Seriously, You could've puked practically anywhere, and you chose to unleash it on me?"

By the pitch and the mere volume of her rant, it would most definitely be…

"Chloe?"

"Duh! Unless you've got any other friend with blue hair and a nasty tongue to confuse me with that I should know about?" Was the grumpy reply from the resident sarcasm master, and though she opened her mouth to utter an apology, only more bile came out.

"Yuck, get away from me, you're disgusting! Eew, this is the last hood I have, Max, and you're ruining it! You're so gonna wash it clean off." The girl shrieked, shedding the piece of garment and jumping away from the trajectory of another burst of liquid from her throw up.

After about a good minute and many puking later, Max finally mustered enough strength to hold back the rest in the inside of her body. "Ugh… sorry."

As she wiped over her lips with the back of her hand, a hand was offered before her face. Without much thought, she grabbed it, and the girl hefted her to her feet, steadying her dizzy movements with a hand pressed firmly on her back. "Easy there. You've probably got a concussion or something."

"Or something. I'd say a power-induced coma, so you're lucky that I actually pulled through."

"Hah. Warming up to me already? From the memory of other Chloe I thought you would be one tough nut to crack."

_Other Chloe_. She'd refered to her Chloe as the other Chloe, because she herself _wasn't_. She was the spy of Namaria, the Empress's second-in-command, and the person who'd done all sorts of unjust to the boys. The same boys whom she'd failed to protect, whom'd been overwritten by time itself.

Whom she'd killed – _murdered_ – by tampering with their past.

Almost in reflex, she unlatched herself from the girl and pushed her aside. "Get away from me."

"Max? I'm pretty sure you can't even hold yourself upright without me-

"Stay away from me!" She yelled, the piece of memory only just coming back to her hazy mind, but it hauled along plenty of heavy baggage. Underneath her the ground shook violently – or was it her head? – and she lost her footing. As her face came crashing down to hard ground, an incredibly soft mattress eased the fall and absorbed the impact, reminding her so much of her futon single back in her dormitory room.

"She's right, y'know. You're only just getting up, so it'd be better to sit back down for a minute." Daniel's voice echoed from somewhere far, far away, the sound faint and blurry in her concussion-ridden mind, and it was only then that she realized the imaginary futon was actually his force field, now slowly pushing her upright and disappearing as suddenly as it had emerged from nowhere. Though his black raven hair popping into her line of vision a second later informed her that her hearing was off, and even worse off was her depth perception as she reached a hand out to grab him, only to touch thin air instead.

"Why- What- How- Where are we?" A million questions raced over her mind as the last memory of what happened earlier came rushing to the forefront of her mind and shooting through the hazy fog, the only clear recollection her mind could manage at the moment. It included subdueing the Empress, the boy letting the anger get the best of him and killing her, and a storm forming over her body pulling them all into its Eye.

"Sean's out taking a tour to the closest village to verify that, though it really should be you that's on the answering side of that question. You took us here in your bubble, remember?" The boy had replied, evoking another piece of memory from her fuzzy recollection, one of calling on her powers and enveloping them all in the sphere just in the last moment to keep them together as they were sucked into the storm, but not enough to defy the pull of the rift and escape its almighty hold.

"This is the storm's doing." Wincing a bit, she mustered the strength to reply. "I could only keep us together."

"Well, being stuck together is certainly better than being scattered across the timeline, at least?" Chloe offered, trying to point out the silver lining in the dark, gloomy cloud of heavy foreboding events, but succeeded only in reminding them of the terrible predicament they all were in.

"Well, it makes sense that you're the only one who finds the Empress getting away a good thing, you back-stabbing spy." Daniel had accused, turning to face the girl as he spoke.

"Hey, don't blame me. Blame the person who lost control of their rage and idiotically kill her eventhough Max had told you not to, thus releasing her back to the timeline." Chloe raised a pointed eyebrow, staring back at the boy in defiance. Max'd thought they were about to erupt into a sudden fight of teeth and nails, but her conjecture was thrown off track abruptly as they both deflated.

"Yeah, that's very much your fault for being with her in the first place too, so can we just let it go for now at least? It's too early to get into this shit." Daniel spoke first through unclenched jaw, forcing her to take a second glance, and very much a third one, disbelief at her own ears.

"Agree to disagree." Chloe shrugged, and this time Max positioned herself back upright. They were reconciliating, or at least acting civil towards one another, so it was something at least.

"So… we all good here?" She'd asked, earning both of their simultaneous nods. She didn't want to give the girl "the talk" per se, seeing as other Chloe had personally assured that the girl was someone she can trust, but there were still bounderies to be established, at least when trust was still something so fragile and vulnerable. "I still don't trust you, Chloe, not because I abhor you, but because you still haven't done anything to earn that trust. It comes with a price, Price – yes, that's an intended pun – and let's just say being an old affiliate with the Empress, which also happens to be our common enemy, serves to bring your initial value in my judgement bellow the average benefit of the doubt. So you're gonna have to work hard to prove that you're on our side, and until then we're still gonna treat you as a possible hostile, no more, no less. Is that fair?"

"Pretty much, I guess." The girl shrugged, but aside her Daniel rolled his eyes.

"I still say that's too generous an offer."

She narrowed her own eyes, tired of all this ridiculous suspicion running between them. "That's acceptable terms, and it goes both ways, or four ways if we're taking all four of us into account. She and I are in, so are you in? I have no doubt your reasonable brother would be in as well."

"How do you know? You're not his brother!"

"But I know he's sixteen, and I also know we mature adults and adolescents share the same thinking pattern. So, do we have your word, that you won't attack her out of nowhere, not unless you can prove indefinitely beyond any doubt that she'd posing a threat to all of us?"

"But-

"Answer the damn question." She snapped, hissing through her teeth, and if she was being honest she would say she did a pretty good job at intimidation.

"Alright, alright, fine, I promise I won't rip her head off when I feel like it, eventhough she deserves it just as much for being her accomplice." The boy relented, although by the impression of his face Max dared say he meant little in his words.

"And that is all I ask of you. I'll take it." Turning to address the blue-haired, she took on a softer tone. "And you, try not to annoy him into eradicating us all, would you please?"

"Sure, that's okay with me." Once again, the girl shrugged, which seemed to be the only thing she did around lately.

"Then it is settled. We'll wait until Sean returns until we speak further on this topic. For now," she fixed them both a stern look, "try to be civil as I sleep the rest of this god-awful headache off, preferably forever, can you? There's little we can do until Sean returns with information regarding our current wherabouts and I'm certainly in no state to take you anywhere with this headache, so just… I dunno, settle down and build a camp first, I'm heading off to catch some 'z's. See y'all on the other side."

She lied back, her head resting on a large, shaggy boulder that just felt so much like the most comfortable pillow of the highest quality in the world at the moment, partly due to the bone-deep fatigue gripping at the edge of her consciousness, but mostly due to the concussion forming in her brain, and a bad one at that. So she closed her eyes, let loose the tension in her muscles, and started giving up hold on consciousness to the growing tumult or something similar in her head, without a care for the world—

"Wait. What the actual _fuck_, why am I lying on a boulder? And why are we in the middle of a jungle?" She was startled awake by the sudden recognition that came too late. Though, seriously, with all the trees, the damp earth, the boulder as her makeshift headrest – seriously, _what was her first clue?_

"Um… you haven't noticed?" Daniel asked, incredulous. "Well, I don't wanna say this, but your headache might be more severe than what it seemed to be."

_No_, it wasn't happening. She had to rewind. Calling upon the power, she bent it to her will—

-only to be crushed with a pressure million times worse than having one's head ran over under a truck, and the last thing she registered was blood rushing over her philtrum as this time she truly lost consciousness over to the relentless pain.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

Sean awoke to the smell of various floral fragrance assaulting his olfactory sensors.

Opening his eyes, Sean swept his eyes across the territory to take in his surroundings, only to be welcomed by the sight of tropical forest, thought rather than lush green they were teal blue in colour. Namaria's specialty, the memory of other him suggested.

"Huh." He snorted. The last thing he'd expected when being sucked into the Empress's dying vortex in the first place was to be taken to Arcadia, but at least that he could comprehend. But to be sucked into the exact same vortex and delivered back to Namaria again? God must have had a good sense of irony, because he himself doesn't, and he did not appreciate it one bit.

A groan sounding somewhere to his left caught his attention. Turning around, he was met with the image of Daniel, lying still and unmoving on cold ground, though he remained relatively intact. His chest raised and dropped occasionally with his breath, Sean noticed, and he huffed out the gust of air he hadn't known he was holding back. The boy was only unconscious, at least, and that was good enough.

To his left, the groan sounded again, and taking effort to look further than his immediate vindicate he spotted Chloe, lying face-down on the damp earth, legs and arms waving blindly as if to gain purchase. If the animosity towards the girl had dwindled to a dim flare upon seeing her in tathered condition some time ago, then now it was flaring up again very much the age-old hatred that had pushed him to extreme measurements the first time around. With he himself striking hard to restrain from physically smashing her head into the ground and making certain it remained there, Sean offered little help to the struggling girl still yet to gain purchase on slippery ground, secretly rejoicing in the show of her miserable, knowing how petty he was, and not giving a care either way.

After a while, she managed to sit up on her own, shooting him an annoyed look. "Thanks a lot for the help."

"You're welcome." He snorted back. Taking that as cue, the girl pushed herself to a semi-upright position, before picking up a pebble and throwing it at him.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Well, not helping me get back up, being a total ass about it, being a bad influence to your brother, going maniac on me the early that morning, and most importantly for not stopping your brother before he did it." The girl listed off, her palm extended, fingers spread, each one going down as she went through each of his alleged crime, and by the end of her accusation was a tightly bailed fist.

He could – had all the reason to, really – fight back, could list off all the crimes she'd done to other him and other Daniel, could blame her for thousands other monstrosities she'd committed to the people of Namaria, let alone stepping into his and Daniel's already too troubled lives and messing it up even worse. But like a fiery flame being draped over with thick, soggy blanket, the fight dissipated like a burnt-out match, to be replaced by exhaustion. He was, indeed, in worse shape than an athlete performing rounds of practice in one go, and all the consecutive days of staying awake had finally caught up to him as was evident by the heavy weight on his eyelids, though he knew his tiredness ran much deeper than surface level of the physical fatigue.

It was the torn conflict, the internal unrest, born from the redundancy of keeping on a feud, of hating someone's guts through the memory of a lifetime not of his own. It was his true sixteen-year-old conscience or whatever was left of it, telling him that to punish someone for crimes they did commit nevertheless, yet not really to him and his own, was just as hypocritical as he had already squared off the deal and delivered a rebuttal on his own. Inside his mind, the two sides battled vehemently, each struggling to gain superiority over the other, yet none truly triumphed. It was once again a crossroads, splitting his path in two halves, one of hatred, loathing and abhorrence, but the other of forgiveness, of moving on, of letting go.

But this time, rather than being veiled by the impenetrable mist of foreboding future, it was clear whichever path would benefit him and them all the most. Eventhough it was barely as satisfactory to his inside animal, who was still howling over fresh agony and demanding that justice be restored, that the convicted be executed, and that its pride be honoured.

His mind was already made, but if there was any ounce of deliberation left, then another look at Daniel all but dissipated their shrooming distraction and returned him to his right track. No matter what, family was always to be the highest priority, and in order to fulfill his duty as the older brother and protect the boy Sean had little choice in the matter.

"Whatever." He'd offered, nonchalant, but his simpler words carried the full weight of what complicated language cannot, and will not fully convey no matter how ostentiously polished. He was willing to put the whole thing behind their back and move on, he'd indicated, and judging by the surprise flashing over her face, even for a fraction of a second, he knew his words were sufficient; she'd understood.

The woman, after taking a moment to compose her reactions and steel herself, began hefting her sprawled body back to her own feet, encountering difficulty as her leg was entertwined deep in strong vines. She pulled on it with her strength, but the powerful grip of nature did not budge, and soon the woman had relented the fight, sat back down and staring at him intensely.

"Would you mind…?" She'd raised an eyebrow, and eventhough he knew she might not have meant it intendedly, it still annoyed the hell out of him.

"Alright, fine." Snapped a grumpy, irritable Sean, as he crossed the short distance to assist the girl in freeing herself. The vines were not exactly easy to pry away from, but between the two of them they managed, and not a few moments later the woman was standing on her own legs, free.

"Thanks." She'd offered, giving him a hand, and instantly his vision swarmed with red. It took him another moment to realize the rage rolling off him in waves originated not from himself, but from the beast of his nature, and then another to force it back down. He'd been living too much of his life under control of the creature, he determined, and with that thought in mind he was set on reclaiming what was his, starting with the harmless gesture of civil and friendliness.

Ignoring the beast's growl of discontent, he took the hand and shook it with vigor, channeling all his pent-up aggravation into the force of the shake, resulting in what could've very well been a joint-dislocating and bone-shattering grip, if the other side of the contact hadn't been mirroring the same force onto his own hand. Looking up, he saw the girl's lips pressed into thin lines, jaws unnaturally rigid, shoulders tense, and eyes glinting, which he realized was exactly mirroring off his own expression.

And he understood. That she'd followed his lead, agreed to put it all behind them. In a way, that small symbol was the exchange of trust, of comradeship, of an unspoken pact to keep the illusion of peace between them and put all hard feelings to rest, as long as the other still complied. And while it still last, perhaps they would even allow something as fragile and unlikely as a friendship to blossom, if they were feeling particularly generous. But that was already pushing it a bit too far, as for right now their common goal of survival and beating the Empress was the only common ground keeping them on the same side of the fortress, and as for how long it shall remain would still be an undetermined factor, a variable dependent entirely on the other's behaviour towards them and their own.

All starting with that simple handshake that lasted a bit too long, applied a little force more than necessary, and remained a bit awkward as they both realized how hard they were gripping at the other's proffered hand.

"You two again? Seriously? Sean, why didn't you tell me you have a thing for blue-haired?" Daniel's voice sounded behind them, startling Sean as he turned around to face the boy, a scandalized expression on his face and a repugnant scowl on his lips.

Apparently, the boy had woken just in the right moment to get the wrong impression of them again, and not unlike the other time, Chloe bursted out laughing. Though on his side, he could not say he was as much pleased with the coincident, it being something too statistically implausible to happen once, let alone twice, and between the two of them at that. Not when the impending thought of giving Daniel a lengthy discussion to clear things out loomed over his head, not while the memory of the last time they had it was still crystal clear in his recollection, accompanied by the mortification that was no less humiliating than the act of being caught in the questionable posture itself was.

But especially not when a loud sound echoed from afar, capturing all of their attention.

"Did you hear that?" He'd asked, every bit as grave serious as he was alarmed, and silently thanking whatever higher power that be for the timely distraction to bring their collective minds off the embarassing incident transpiring barely a second prior.

"Yeah, I think it was a gunshot." Daniel had hazarded a guess, earning their both wide-eyed stare. "What? Of course I know how one sounds like, don't look at me like that. I watch TV too, y'know, and gunshots really aren't rated parental guidance."

Chloe shrugged in response, giving the boy's indignant huff no care as she directed at Sean. "Um… right. I think we should check it out."

"Definitely. Maybe I should go, since I'm the fastest here-

"No way, Sean! It's too dangerous. I'm coming with you." Daniel yelled, clinging on to his arm when he was about to shoot away. "What if they shoot you?"

"Then I need you to stay here and guard Max. She's still unconscious, see?" He refered to the girl whom he'd only just noticed a second before, lying face-up on damp earth quite a few feet away from them. "If they get me, no doubt they'll definitely get you all as well, so our best bet would be to wait for her to come to her senses, then get her to rewind."

"But still-

"Listen, Daniel. She's our only way back home, if you haven't noticed we aren't exactly in Seattle anymore now, see those blue flora around?" The boy looked in the direction of his pointed finger, eyes widened as he really took in the bizzare nature life for the first time since arriving at the jungle. "We're in Namaria, but I don't know when or where, so that gunshot would most likely be our chance to figure out anything. So stay here, and wait; I'll be back soon."

Without giving the boy an extra second to pout, he bolted away in the direction of the sound and out of their direct line of sight.

* * *

The lush forestry of Namaria bore many difference to his own world, he'd come to the conclusion as he reached a clearing out of nowhere in his pursuit of the gunshot. It was pretty, so he allowed himself a second to take a breath and enjoy the exquisite view, for what it was worth.

With all the tireless ordeals assaulting them one after another, he hadn't truly allowed the scene to enter his mind bearing its unnatural hue. Even now, he was on a mission, to find the source of the sound and investigate its origin in hope of determining where and when they were, so his tight-packed schedule certainly did not leave leisure time to stroll around, sightsee and enjoy the view. He remembered much of the scenaries from other Sean's memories, a lifetime of crawling through them to be exact, and that alone should have been enough to deaden his obssessive fondness for exquisite sights that weren't even exquisite no longer. Yet, he could not bring himself to tear his gaze away and walk on, whether his limbs weren't responding to his command, or he just really didn't muster enough resolution to will himself to. Either way, he found himself staring where he was, eyes captivated, breath hitched, tongue lolling aside and mouth agaped as he looked every bit much like the fool his appearance might've suggested, common senses forgotten and urgent mission ignored in favour of the sight.

He was truly seeing it all in for the first time as the sixteen-year-old city boy, not as the faint set of memories from the recollection of a lifetime he did not live, and his response was pure, sincere, unfabricated, like anyone else with a love for nature and an appreciation for beauty would've reacted when opposed to the scenic grace that was the realm where magicals reigned superiority over mortal comprehension.

Evergreen stood proud and tall all around him, their wooden base rose high into the air, expanded into thick matress of leaves that spreaded wide in a fan formation to suck up sunlight. They allowed little outside light to breach through thick, dense vines to shine the way underneath the surface, hence his entire journey was did in half lit darkness, thin stripes of sunray slithering through branches being the only dwindling light source. They illuminated barely any, but those that were fortunate enough to be glittered in a briliant teal-blue aura, almost surreal. From atop the branches he spotted tendrils of vines, reaching long, slim tendrils out, snaking across any available surface, bonding together in inextricable knots and twists, before cascading down with azure-coloured blossoms akin to a beautifully crafted blind, one that with all of its fairytale appearance suggested nothing less than a magical portal to wonderland itself.

Resisting the childish temptation to swipe the blinds aside and walk through them, Sean moved onwards. He had a mission to focus on, and with the Empress still at large, he didn't have any time to slow down and enjoy the view, even for a second that most definitely wouldn't hurt anybody or get them any closer to their target.

"Oh, who am I kidding." Sean backtracked until he was standing in the clearing before taking an alternate route, lifting the cascade of vines as he crawled into the unknown territory of dense forestry and thick branches, leaves falling over his moving body to conceal him from eyesight and stave off any determined strands of sunlight from his slinking form as the boy slipped entirely into the magical world in his very first time, memories of a lifetime past all but forgotten in the face of enchanting sight and charming mystery, all senses of rational being dimmed in comparison with the newfound astonishment for the lush nature of Namaria.

He also did not know of the whispered voices echoing in the wake of his absence.

"Spotted a man North-East about 30 miles away from base. Slim, spy-built, very lean and agile. Possible Burian assassin. Suggestion?"

"Pursuit."

"Copy, over and out."

* * *

Sean wandered across the forest, the sound of gunshot now only a faint thought in his mind, far, far away from his current musing, which was how to get out of the maze he'd oh-so-conveniently led himself into, with his stupidity and carelessness. _Like, seriously, how hard could it have been to stay on the clear side of the path and to keep track of directions at all time?_

"Very much, apparently." He muttered a reply to himself, mentally kicking himself in the balls for ever letting curiosity getting the best of him.

He'd reached a dead end, dense trees behind his back and a tall wall of thorny hedges blocking his advance. He could attempt to backtrack himself back to the clearing, but alas his detour was one of an hour or perhaps two, and between these indistinguishable blue-green shades of nature he would only confuse himself more if he were to try it without any coordinating device. He was lost, so utterly, thoroughly, hopelessly so, and he knew not of the direction one was to take next in order to free himself from the relentless grip of misguiding maze.

Though he did not expect for the voices to echo faintly behind these high hedge, nor did he expect to hear them so close.

"Target seemed disoriented, possibly lost. It's our golden opportunity." A voice had announced, its texture muffled behind layers of thick forestry, though he could make out the rumbling quality of a male's barritone. It bore many resemblance to a voice he'd heard sometime ago, though in a faint piece of recollection, so he pushed his mind to hard labour to recall its origin.

"Should we try and bring him back to base?" Another voice was raised, and this one was an entire octave higher. He could almost picture a young child, no more than ten years of age at the very best. This voice sounded even more familiar than the previous, but with the distorted effect of layers of thick leaves in the way it was disfigured, obscure and unclear, forcing him to put his mind to great concentration to place its origin exactly.

"Copy. Closing in on target, over." The first voice had said, and so intendly focused on trying to identify them that he'd not paid enough attention to the content or the insinuation behind, until it was too late. When noise of movements registered on his mind, he ran.

One of the perks of being a track runner, his muscles were always coiled, ready for action, so he'd bolted away the moment he'd realized the person in discuss was him. He was, or at least should have been a good mile away by the time the echo of the last reply reached his ears, but instead he felt strong arms pressing hard against his side, and he was thrown off-balance into the mud, rolling to a stop with his own limbs struggling weakly against the assailant strong hold.

"Let go of me! Let go-

His feverish rant was cut short when the accute tip of a sword was pressed against the vulnerable exposed of his throat, the memory evoking nolstagia from a certain occasion long ago under a cave back in his own world, and quickly he banished the thought before it could erupt into a full-out panic attack.

"Cease and desist, stranger, for we have our hold on your life, and with but a slip it would be all over." He heard the faint whisper of his assaulter raising goosebumbs on the crook of his neck, but not because of their malicious threat or the death dangling dangerously close to his throat, but because of the familiar voice he could now identify without any obstacles in between them to twist the sound beyond its natural texture, revealing itself to be eerily similar to his own.

A voice he could now associate a face to, and his mind pointed out the only obvious answer it could only ever have been. A voice he would always recognize, no matter whichever alternate timeline they were from.

"Sean." He heard himself whispering, and the person behind him tensed in response. The grip on his ribs tightened itself a bit more, tethering on the edge of being outright painful, and the other person growled into his ears, putting on the best attempt at intimidation to cover up the waver of resolve he could detect underneath.

"How did you know my name?" His gruff voice had asked, but it wasn't him who had raised the question. Though it was him who broke free of the hold, turned around, pulled down the hood of his shirt, faced his counterpart in the eyes that widened in shock and replied firmly.

"Because I'm you."

* * *

"Max! Get up, now! We need your help!"

Max snapped open her eyes and bolted upright, violently aroused from her slumber by the frantic call of one Chloe Price. Appearing in her direct line of vision was the familiar blue-haired, crouched down low with her back to her and a long stick secured firmly in hand.

"Thank god you're finally awake, Max. What're you waiting for? Rewind!" The girl yelled, the staff twisting in her hand and striking at a fuzzy shadow that had yet to register itself in her stagnant optical relay. The dark shadow lurched back to avoid the blow, but instead directed its assault in the direction of another person, and swiping her eyes across she recognized the raven mess of hair of Daniel, the boy jumping out of the animal's charge just in time to avoid being its unfortunate victim.

"Max! Rewind! I tried to fight them off, but there were too much of them!" The boy hollered, with a swipe of his hand sending the creature flying back into the distance, and it wasn't until the creature landed forcefully on all four of its long, scrawny limbs that its figure registered clearly in her peripheral view as the beastly apparition that it was. It represented a canine, with powerful jaw and long fangs slipping out of blood red muzzle, and with ears erected on the back of its head she recognized the outline of the creature of the wilderness, the wolf. It was crouching down low on all fours, hissing through its clenched jaw and displaying its impressive collection of canines in an act of intimidation, its back muscles coiled like a tight spring ready to lunge at them at any moment. Its front paws dug into hard ground, claws showing white at the tip of the limb, while its hindlegs remained sturdy on the ground behind, the definition of muscles running across its powerful thighs into the strong stance that the creature had adopted as it remained still, standing its ground against the two human offenders.

"What are you waiting for? Rewind! Now!" Chloe shrieked, turning at lightning speed to fight off another wolf pounding on her from the sight that had taken advantage of the unguarded flank, and with a skillful twist of the bo stick hurled it back into the air at the other wolf, the two of them collapsing into a jumble and skidding across the ground a few metres. Though as if learning the efficiency of this techniques, an entire pack of wolves pounded at Daniel's turned back, and the boy could barely keep them at bay with the force field he'd summoned at last moment, keeping bloodthirsty fangs inch away from his exposed throat.

"Max! Help!" He'd shouted, sending them flying in all directions, but like the relentless creature of the wild they clung on, riding waves after waves of force pushing them back while digging paws into hard gravel and standing their ground as a united pack. With tenacity they remained, and though Daniel was clearly pushing the best of his ability into his power, he could not stave the creatures off entirely as they remained still as a lifeless slab of stone, eyes glinting with malice and trailing on the juicy flow of his jugular, made even more transparent on pale skin as the by was pushed to exertion. "I can't push them back!"

Another creature jumped at Chloe, but the girl dodged out of the way, her bo staff twisting artfully striking the animal's muzzle and throwing it off-balance into the boulder nearby. It skull impacted against hard rock with a clear crack that rung out apparent in deadbeat silence, but rather than the flow of red blood oozing out like she'd expected, the creature took only a moment to regain its bearing, before rejoining the fight again by its pack. It was almost as if they were unaffected by the physical assault, if anything even more motivated as it pounded relentlessly at the girl who was clearly losing ground, despite having every attempt unsuccessfully deflected. "Max! A bit help would be appreciated here!"

"But how?" She yelled back, only coming back to her senses just in time to dodge the lunge of another beast made in her direction. "I can't just rewind myself away and leave you two here?"

"Don't be silly, Max!" Chloe shouted over the commotion, hand still twisting the bo stick with fluency and fighting off two advancing wolves at once. "Tell past us to build a freaking fire or something, because I'll kick your ass if you dare leave us here to deal with these beasts again while you doze off in your sweet dreams!"

"Oh, right." She slapped a hand over her forehead, ridiculed by her own lack of clarity. Before her, Daniel was slowly releasing his hold on the pack, as was evident by their distance being gradually reduced, and Max knew the boy couldn't hold on for much longer. She raised a hand, calling onto the familiar rush of power behind the back of her head and let it take her back to where it all began.

She closed her eyes, feeling the familiar tingle of reverse time brushing against her consciousness and the cool sensation ghosting over her skin, allowed it to flow freely through the slip of her fingers until she was carried a good few hours prior to deliver the proper caution and allow them the time to improvise. Though she didn't expect to be slammed into an invisible wall and flung back into normal timeflow, to open her eyes to the sight of the creatures pounding on Daniel as the boy gave a shriek of dismay. "Max! Why didn't you rewind back?"

"I… I don't know! I can't!" She squealed back, grabbing a nearby stick and throwing it at the hungry pack, diverting their attention to her for the slightest moment that allowed the boy the window of time to crawl out of their advance. "Something's blocking me!"

"Well, do something, or we'll be as good as dead by the time these hungry creatures are done with us!" Chloe yelled from her side of the battle, the bo stick bitten on the other side by a pair of powerful jaw that just wouldn't let go, forcing her to sacrifice the weapon as she lurched back herself to avoid the animal's deadly leap. "I'm as good as dead by now! Any ideas?"

"I'm even more useless than you, I can't rewind!" Max panicked, in her desperate last attempt to defend herself picking up some pebbles and flinging them at the oncoming assaulters, the tiny rocks having no effect whatsoever on the creatures slowly closing in on them.

"I'm juiced out! I don't know why, but ever since we arrived here my power's limited, as if whatever's blocking you is limiting me as well!" Daniel shouted from her side, his hands flicking wildly in the air, but to no avail as the creatures advanced unhindered. "Do sosmething, or we're all gonna be dead meat!"

In that last moment when the wolves got close enough to reach them in a leap, when they all crouched down low with dentas bared, canines flashing, and a promised death lingering in their opened jaws, Max squeezed her eyes shut as she called upon the power in a last attempt. Beside her, the boy tucked himself against her side, arms and legs pulled up and winded tightly around himself as the boy coiled back into a small ball, as if trying to disappear altogether by making himself pass as unappetizing as possible. On her other side, Chloe's arms clung to her own, and she took off her hood, hurling it at the wolves in a desperate act of distraction. The piece of garment traveled a perfect trajectory until it flopped down on hard ground, its presence promptly ignored as the creatures resumed their advance, trampling on the piece of clothing without second consideration, the three human beings their only desirable target in mind and everything else a nuisance to their much-deprived meal, as the outer appearance of their skinny ribs and frail limbs would've suggested.

The underfed pack of wolves was hungry, and to them they were nothing but mouth-watering prey. The rules of survival dictated their actions, the call of hunger drove their tenacious assault, and there was little the three of them could do other than sit and watch their own demise unravelling before their own eyes, helpless to do anything to change their unfortunate fate of running into the band of wild animals that night. With hands entertwined, eyes squeezed shut and breath rushed, they sat perfectly still in await of the ultimate end, expecting nothing less than merciless snaps of sharp canines, piercing strong fangs plunging into soft flesh, and ravenous beasts tearing their body apiece as they disappeared down the throats of a hungry wolf pack.

But they expected not, an outside intervention in the last moment to save the skin of their neck unharmed. They expected not also, to survive that night, under the fangs of voracious creatures of the wild and in the darkness of anonymous jungle, to see the sunlight of another day shining its warmth on humanity, to keep their flesh intact and their body in one piece.

But most important of all, Max expected not to see the newly arrivals ever again, at least not them exactly, not in this life, and not in any other that she'd had a hand in helping to destroy. She didn't even thought it was possible, that they were already long gone, too far away beyond salvation; and yet, there they were, armors glinting bright under direct moonlight, posture upright and proud, as if nothing had ever happened to them in the first place, as if everything had been fine all along, eventhough she knew it was impossible, was unlikely, was illusional to keep on fooling herself into believing so.

Yet, there they remained, very much real, alive and not just a figment of her guilty conscience's creation, their knights to save the day, to accomplish the heroic deed, to keep them safe. To step into her life and mess up everything again, leaving yet another impact that would forever change her.

There they was, Sean and Daniel, the ones from Namaria, standing between them and the ferocious pack of wolves, the last barrier between them and death itself.

But to Max, they were every bit the last straw to break the camel's back, the last droplet to flood the full cup, the last blow to crumble the floodgate, the last heartbeat to total expiration of the human life. The last string that had tied her back to sanity, now stretched dangerously thin and about to snap at any given moment, sending her spiralling back to the void she'd worked so hard to put behind and move on, but just wouldn't stay left behind, wouldn't give up on haunting her, wouldn't let go of the pain, guilt and desperateness she'd once clung onto like a lifeline, despite how misguided, how illusional she knew it was.

They were finally there, before her very own eyes, to question her of her wrongdoings, of the promise she'd broken, of the fate she'd doomed to endless suffering and torment, of the trust she'd taken with such grave seriousness only to throw away at the first opportunity she'd got.

And even worse, she knew she had no excuse this time. Her rewind didn't work anymore, for whatever reasons, perfectly trapping her to face her own misdeeds without an easy way out to take like she'd always relied on time and time again before, sentencing her to answer the punishment of her own crime.

Judgement day had finally come for her, and sooner or later she was bound to pay the price.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

He didn't know how he knew the three of his fellow peers were in danger, or what to say to convince them that he wasn't a creation of the Empress and was indeed genuine Sean Diaz in bone and flesh, albeit from another dimension. But he knew the animal inside him, and when it started howling he knew right then and there that something was horribly wrong, that there was no time to waste on idle chatter while Daniel, the last of his pack, the only remainding of his family, was facing threat.

So he'd pretty much allowed it dominance over his body, let it pick out his words, let it sweet talk the two boys into following his lead, and let it drive him through misguiding woods all the way back to Daniel. At first he was confused, uncertain of its movement, unclear of its intention, but upon hearing the sound of struggle he knew the animal made the right call leading reinforcements to their base, to the three fellow companions of his, terribly overnumbered by the pack of voracious wolves. Seeing the beasts, the boys took matter into their own hands, Daniel stepping up and other him falling into steps from behind as they faced down the animals.

He'd half expected a fight, but it all happened in a heartbeat instead.

A moment before, the wolves were pounding relentlessly, not showing any sign of giving up the fight anytime soon. A moment after, they were thrown across the ground and all the way back behind dense branches and low bushes where they came from, yelping and growling helplessly as they trodded away, more intend on saving the skin of their neck than securing the meal that was already lost. As the creatures of the wild as they were, they knew well the rules, and that was to obey the superior; in the moment, the small boy standing with his hand outreached in the middle of the clearing was the superior, and them being thrown yards without establishing any physical contact whatsoever was more than enough proof for that. Hence, they had no other option than to turn tails and flee the scene, to live and fight another day, to let the three defenseless beings keep their petty lives and their wits about themselves.

Looking at the slinking form of the wolves trampling each other in their hurry to get away from the boy who defied all laws of physics, Sean was lost in the world of his own musing. No matter how many times he'd seen his brother in action, he couldn't help but marvel in awe. The boy was definitely a force to be reckoned with, that much was certain, but once again he was reminded with how powerful Daniel really was when he put his mind to a matter. Although the force was no match to an emotionally driven Daniel, he in his best state was competent enough to fend off an entire armada by his own, that Sean knew well, and he had no doubt about it altogether; the boy would be their key to defeating the Empress when the time came.

Though when he was showering the boy with praise of his own, he certainly did not expect the aftermath of the fight to escalate so abruptly, having thought the brunt of it was already over. _Boy_, how wrong he was to have assumed so, because the instance the last of the animals were gone, the boy turned to his three other companions, eyes yet to release their glinted gaze and hostility yet to bleed out fully from his outreached hand.

The boy bailed his open palm into a tight fist at the sight of Max and Chloe, whom he realized, with a yelp and a frantic wave of hand, was actually his mortal enemies in the boy's point of view. Though when he rushed to intercept, strong hands held him back, which he recognized by the callouses was none other than his own, as he was made helpless to watch the confrontation transpire.

The boy snared through clenched teeth, eyes bearing hole into the face of the women. "You…"

"I'm not the Empress, if you're about to point fingers now." The girl stared back, eyes unblinking and posture unnaturally rigid, as if to hide her discomfort. "In fact, I'm her worst enemy, perhaps the only person whom she hate above all else, including you and your brother."

"Shut up, you lying witch!" The boy growled, his hand tightened, putting all three of them on a chokehold. In pure reflex he broke free of the arms holding him back and rushed over, but Daniel was much faster, already holding out another hand to keep him in place. "You, too! You think taking the outer appearance of Sean can fool us into believing you're really him? You're just another trick that the Empress had played on our senses, leading us to a trap. Sean may have agreed to follow you here, but I wasn't fooled; I knew you're the Empress's work, and I'm going to deal with you as soon as I'm done with her."

"Daniel, stop! Just hear them out first, will you?" He'd tried to get through to the boy, but was met only with a wall of resolution. He was utterly confused; _why wasn't Max rewinding already?_

"It's… it's no u-use, Sean." The girl in question sputtered broken words over her lack of breath. "I… I can't, I d-don't know w-why…"

No time to wonder though; Daniel's face was already showing various shades of purple and green, the boy's air intake being cut off for a minute too long. His struggle had ceased, muscles relaxed and tension uncoiled; the boy had already being knocked out cold. For whatever reasons, the power he was relying on clearly wasn't available to come to their aid, and he would be damned if he let Daniel be injured under his watch waiting for someone else to rewind it all away while he could do something at least. Even if it didn't matter in the end, he still could at least try and salvage what was left of their current predicament.

He took the weapon from other him's belt in a quick swipe of his hand, rendering the other completely still as he raised it to his neck. "Daniel, stop! Or I'll cut open your brother's throat."

Eyes widening in shock, the boy dropped his hold on the three still dangling mid-air to turn and face him. "You dare-

"Not another word, or I'll make the cut, and just so you know my reflex is quicker than yours; you know that's true." He made the threat, not entirely bluffing as the years of swordsmanship training other him had committed to gave him the necessary expertise to carry out his promise. Though if he really possessed the grit to take the first life was still a matter for debate; other him may have done much in the name of justice, but Sean was still every bit the sixteen-year-old city boy he was a week ago, his hand clean of blood.

Seemingly realize this, Daniel relented, his fingers stretched and palms open in a gesture of peace. "Drop the weapon."

"Do I have your word that when I release this weapon, you will not attack me or my allies?" He raised the question, the sword still dangling close to the jugular. He could never bring himself to deliver the blow or hurt the boy in any way, and just the idea of posing a threat over the boy's most beloved person disgusted him, but he got no other option. Either it was his Daniel, or their two counterparts from an alternate timeline, and no matter what true family always came first.

"You have my word. Now drop it." Daniel had lowered his hand, but the motion wasn't enough to get him convinced.

"I need something more than that." He'd stood his ground, though with his front now facing the boy entirely and his back to the other Sean, the worst mistake he could ever make.

He heard a loud noise behind his turned flank, felt a hard impact against the skull of his head, and then saw nothing as his world was submerged in darkness.

* * *

He heard voices, indistinct, faint, muffled. Voices that were similar to his and Daniel's own. Voices that were the last thing he could remember before being knocked out cold by the force of a blow to his head, under the arm of the very person whose voice he was hearing.

Voices of his and Daniel's other selves, somehow still alive and currently taking them into custody, if his tied wrists and bound ankles were any indication.

"Help!" He yelled, only realizing his eyes were blindfolded by a black strip of tathered linen. Though it was pretty thin veiled, and if he were to squint his eyes he could almost perceive the faint silhouette of objects casting shadows on a leather divider right in front of him.

"Oh, so you're awake?" He heard himself replying, though it wasn't as much him as it was his Namaria counterpart, the boy heeding him no more care than the nonchalant remark. Sean recognized the taller shadow on the screen was other him's image, in stark contrast with the glowing light of an oil lamp he was holding. "Took you long enough."

Now that his vision came into more defined focus, he could make out the wooden beam holding up the small cabin-of-sort he was being seated in, and the leather screen with the boys' shadows was only one of four that boxed him into that transport vehicle and away from the outside world. "Where am I?" He questioned, not really expecting a straight, direct and clear-cut answer but got one anyway.

"On the way back to the Resistance headquarters, of course. Where else would we send a Burian spy?" Other him sounded almost unaffected, but by the shaky quality of his voice Sean dared hazard a guess something was bothering him. He realized now that he was inside a wagon, probably being escorted by the two boys back to the underground cavern that he remembered clearly from memories of other him. _Old_ other him apparently, because he certainly did not remember anything about running into himself and the rest of the crew in the first play-through of his life.

Though before he could point that out, the smaller shadow chimed in, revealing his identity to be that of his younger sibling, albeit the alternate version. "Keep silent, prisoner. You are to be judged under the open court of Egor, and will be sufficiently hanged as is the proper punishment for any treachery act committed against our nation. But until then if you annoy me enough, you might give me enough reason to cut the wait short and do it myself."

He snorted, unable to picture such complex dialect coming from his nine-year-old brother despite whichever reality he may have come from. "I take it your brother must have gone through great efforts to make you memorize that, huh?"

"I remember it of my own accord, ever since the day my father was charged and executed back home." Came Daniel's grim retort. "And since then I never forgot."

That was certainly strange. He did not remember anyone being executed in other him's memory, no less their father who sacrificed to save them. "Wait up, what do you mean?"

It was other Sean who offered a reply this time. "You heard right, Daniel and I have been on the run since then. I thought the Empress copied all of our memories for you already, but as it turns out, you're only as good as a hard copy of our appearance, huh?"

He read by the irony of their tone, by the bitter acceptance bleeding through their voice and by the dead honesty in their reply that whatever was happening, either they were bluffing it off, or there was something wrong. And it could either be that his own set of recollection about Namaria was incorrect, or these boys really weren't him and Daniel's counterparts, at least not the version of him that he'd possessed the memory of.

Something horribly, utterly, disastrously wrong had happened to them, he realized. And paired with Max's mysterious behaviour before they got caught up in the temporal storm, he came to the conclusion he should have long ago.

Max knew something more than she'd let on.

And of course, he was intend on uncovering that piece of knowledge. "Where's Max?"

"Who's Max? The Empress, you mean?" Daniel asked again, belligerent. "She deserved to die straight away, but at Sean's insistence I was forced to let her live out the rest of her accursed existence, at least until it came to an end under the hoop anyway."

"That wasn't what I was asking for."

"And I see no reason why we owe it to you to reveal everything we know." Other him snapped, voice gruff and tired. "You can be her accomplice, planning for an escape route as we speak for all I know."

"I'm not- how many times must I prove myself to you that I'm the real Sean?" He was frustrated, so his rant may have ended up something akin to a raise of voice. Daniel didn't take much liking to it though, seeing as the boy lifted the leather screen dividing them and glared directly at his face.

"You don't fool anyone. I followed you to your base and fended off all those beasts not because I trusted you or wanted to protect you, but because I knew it would be much more fun to take you filthy spies apart under my own hands." His voice cold and devoid of humanity, he spoke. The malice dripping from his words were no less threatening than the boy's gleaming eyes, and as Sean felt chill creeping across his spines he was forced to repress a shudder. "Don't test me."

Apparently, he wasn't the only one to be unnerved by such a threat.

"Daniel, control yourself. We're almost there." Other him berated the boy, who effectively silenced himself.

They spoke no more as the rest of the journey was completed in companionable silence that tethered almost on the edge of silent hostility, until the smell of damp earth and floral fragrance was replaced by scorching dry air, evoking much of the memory of the land where his other's memory had spent the greater part of three years at.

Sean knew not when sleep had overtaken him, or when exactly had they exited tropical forest and entered mainland, only that he remembered little of the trip before morning came.

* * *

They arrived in Egor near dawn, and as the first rays of sunlight pierce through thin linen veils to assault his senses, he was shaken awake rather violently, by a pair of hands belonging to none other than Daniel – his own Daniel. Apparently, the boy had freed himself somehow, and had taken the liberty of removing his blindfold, which would very well explain the much abhorred abundance of sunlight.

"Ugh, just five more minutes wouldn't kill." He muttered, the events of last night yet to catch up with his hazy brain still heavily infused with hibernation.

"I'm serious, Sean. Get up, or I'll eat all your pancakes."

He shot upright at the first mention of anything remotely resembling food, his empty stomach complaining loudly in response as Sean blinked away the drowsiness in his eyes in a heartbeat, only for the shit-eating grin of his brother's face to come into focus.

"Got you. Hah! Who's the greedy pig now?" The boy exclaimed, triumphant at his cruel, sadistic practical joke. Needless to say, Sean was a burning furnace of discontent when he realized the boy was lying about the none-existent pile of pancakes.

"You…"

"Seriously Sean, focus. We're there, wherever there is, and us – them – I mean they – aren't around, so if we were to escape, now's our chance." The boy showed him his own pair of free hands, untied and free of the cordage that had bound it so tightly yesterday, red marks still adorning his wrists the lively reminder of it.

"How…?"

"No time. Let's go now, they'll be back any minute!" The boy scampered off, lifting the leather screen and slipping under the tiny gap with his nine-year-old stature with relative ease. Sean made an attempt to follow suit, but wasn't so fortunate as his taller body got stuck between the edges, backstruts cramped uncomfortably and his elbow bent beyond their natural angle of movement.

"Come on, Sean! What's taking you so long?" Daniel urged, pulling at his free arm, which only served to sprain it out of its socket even worse.

"Ow, ow, ow, stop pulling or my hand'll fall off. I think I dislocated my wrist or something." Another experimental tug on his stuck arm proved his theory; his wrist was indeed stuck between the edge, and to force it out was not an option if he still valued being a human being with all four functional limbs.

"Well then hurry up or something! They're gonna caught us!" The boy panicked, in his frantic speech only served to unsettle him more if that was possible.

"I'm trying, and it's not working! I'm too big!"

"You're too fat, that's what you are. Come on, let me." He wedged his chubby fingers into the tiny gap and forced them open with the best of his underdeveloped strength, which was only about an inch or so. Fortunately, it seemed to have done the trick, as the all powerful grip on his hand was released and Sean stumbled over by the force of his own pull.

Scrambling to his feet, he swept his eyes around their surrounding. They were inside the walls of a fortress of some sort, though it was nowhere as grand and sturdy as was the exterior of the Diaz manor, if anything only a poor replica of it. Built by heavy slabs of stone stacked neatly together, Sean hazarded a guess it wouldn't take them much more than a nudge in the right direction for them all to come crumbling down like a stack of Jenga.

That said, he did not expect to be electrocuted as he rammed his shoulder directly into a particularly weak-looking point, only to be thrown yards backward from the force of the assault. "Ouch! What's wrong with this wall?"

"We can't get through it, I've tried. But there's a back route here, come!" Daniel shouted from somewhere in the distance, his slim form rounding a corner and disappearing from his direct line of vision, forcing him to take a strafe to catch up with the boy.

"Wait up! Daniel, I said wait up!" He called after the boy, who was probably already too far off to hear him anyway. Rounding the section of curvy stone wall, he ran into a tunnel leading underground, built and reinforced with rotten wood beams that seemed less than competent to hold up the weight of anything heavier than a paper napkin itself. Though there was nowhere else to go, as stretching beyond the entrance to the tunnel and covering overhead of the run-down structure was nothing but paddy fields, those extending almost to the horizon and beyond, covering everything in observable eyesight with the lightest shade of teal, not a single hiding spot in sight. He bet Daniel couldn't have made it that far out of his vision, and as there was no other route than the suspicious-looking tunnel, he had little choice.

Bracing himself for the structural failure that would inevitably crumble and bring tonnes of earth down burying him alive, he made his way into the dark stretch of unlit tunnelway, carefully picking his steps so as not to trigger the tiniest seismic reaction that would undoubtedly be the undoing of himself.

Step-by-step, he found his way through the absolute darkness, hands outreached and feeling for everything that he might possibly bump into, which fortunately enough was only a stray rock here and there. Or at least it had seemed to be, until he stumbled across a solid wall of stones, quite effectively blocking his way in any further and marking the dead-end of the tunnelpath.

He was about to give up the aimless wander in the dark and return the way he'd come in, when another being made its presence known by bumping directly into his back, giving him the cardiac arrest of his life with its own ear-deafening scream. Of course, stumbling around in the dark for the last few minutes without a single spark of light in sight already worn his nerves out quite a bit, so he really couldn't be blamed for replicating the scream with one of his own.

Though he swore he already heard that scream from somewhere. It sounded eerily familiar, like from a certain nine-year-old brother of his…

_Wait a second_. "Daniel?" He called into the dark, hands running across the figure to come into contact with a pile of ruffled hair that very much matched the description of his brother.

"Sean?" Came the reply, and likewise he felt hands running up and down his body, quite literally and no pun intended because that would be gross, feeling him in the dark.

"It's you, isn't it?" He asked, and for the sake of them both retracted his hands, feeling the boy replicating his gesture. Immediate silence followed their outburst of volume quite a while after, until he mustered the boldness to force the next words out. "We may have overreacted a bit back there, huh?"

"We sure did, screaming out like a bunch of girls…"

Awkward ice froze over their hesitence to continue.

"Never speak about this again?"

"Agreed."

He threw himself at the wall and started feeling it – again, no pun intended – up and down for any suspicious feeling crevice or a trigger mechanism, partly because years of RPG video gaming experience suggested there was no reason to build a tunnel that led nowhere, but mostly because he was desperate for anything to take his mind off the embarassing incident, and aside him he felt Daniel following suit. As they covered every inch of the the wall until their fingertips were covered in muck and grime, Daniel gave up, exasperated.

"We've been going at this for hours, and I'm telling you, there's no way to get through this wall! It's a dead-end!" He whined, and Sean could almost hear him flopping down on the ground, arms crossed and lips pouted.

"Come on, it hasn't been five minutes yet, don't even try that with me. And there's got to be a way through, we just haven't found it yet. Keep looking."

"We've looked everywhere, there's just no way in! And we can't even say for sure if there's anything behind this wall. It might very well be dirt, for all we know." He didn't want to admit it, but a large part of him was harbouring the exact same doubt over and over again for the last few pointless minutes, and he had been tempted himself many times to just give it up altogether.

"Come on, Daniel. We're the wolf brothers, we don't give up that easily!" He'd said in an attempt to cheer the boy up, but the soft click of cogs turning following right after was something he did not intend to, nor expect in any way possible.

"Was that you?" He questioned the boy, who shook his head in the dark. Realizing how futile his motion was, he muttered a soft denial.

"Then what caused that sound?"

"Probably-

Daniel never got to finish his assumption before a crack started running alongside the wall's surface, splitting it in halves and expanded as the two stone sections retracted back to the side, revealing a well-lit entrance. Along the newly-revealed walls, torches were hung in bracket, their flames cackling cold blue rather than hot red, illuminating the grand pathway that led deep underground and descended into a set of stairs. Wordlessly, they traveled the path side-by-side, steps in perfect tandem and eyes brushing wide, taking in the new surroundings.

Beneath them, uneven rocks receded to be replaced with level hardwood, cushioning their steps and sending them on a much smoother journey. Blue flame flickered with a dim glow, cascading shadows onto the flat surface of walls, which upon closer inspection revealed to be black marble, perfectly polished to a shine. Continuing their trip, they arrived at the top flight of stairs, beautifully ornamented with intricate twists and curves along the length of its golden banister, while the set of stairs themselves were made of the same black marble matching the walls. Giving the thing a strong pull, Sean was satisfied to see it budged not an inch. It would be steady enough to carry their weight, he decided, and so they began their descend.

All the way down, Daniel stuck close to his side, hand firmly clinging to his own and the other gripping the banister with all his strength. The width of the stair themselves were more spacious than most, allowing two grown man to travel side-by-side with relative ease, hence why he and Daniel could fit more than comfortably on the same set of stairs, allowing them to descend at the same speed. Though even if it wasn't possible, he doubted Daniel would willingly agree to be left behind or to take the lead into unknown darkness by himself, and would probably latched himself onto him like a lifeline anyway.

They made the set of stairs in silence, all the way down what Sean guessed was probably the tenth subground level, in height relative to a big shopping mall, with how deep he'd descended on foot through all these endless flight of stairs. Fortunately, black marble slabs were replaced by familiar hardwood on the eleventh floor, and they both sighed in relief as their endless descend came to an end, allowing their both fatigued legs a much deserved rest.

The bottom chamber was most similar to the one before all the stairs, though instead of blue the torches were neon red in colour, a whole tone brighter than the usual orange-red fire. The walls still remained the same black marble as did all those that stood before that, but due to the red source of light they bore somewhat of a reddish hue rather than just pure black. Somehow, knowing the colour had nothing to do with actual blood, it still gave Sean much of a creep as he rushed his own steps walking through the tunnel. Beside him, Daniel was practically running on the tip of his toes; the boy clearly more shaken than he let on.

Within reason as well, because after a few trods they arrived at what seemed very much alike a body, lying face-down and hands sprawled aside, completely immobile. It could've very well passed for a person lying deep asleep in a rather unusual position of choice, had there not been a pool of red blood flooding the unfortunate victim, still oozing afresh from a wound on their head. And had there been any further need for more determinant evidence, it would have been vanquished by the silver hilt of a dagger still protruding from the opening, its intricate details glinting sharp in the glowing illumination offered by the torches.

"Sean! That's… that's…" Daniel froze dead in place when he realized the corpse for what it was, unable to form a coherent utterance of any sort as the terror struck cold on his unnaturally stiff facial.

Taking the boy into his arms, Sean buried the boy's face into his chest, rubbing small circles on his back as he whispered softly into his ears. "It's okay, enano. I'm here."

Though Daniel could act tough, strangle someone or even attempt to murder them, he knew this Daniel was nowhere near the Daniel of this world. He may knew of all the crimes his other self, Chloe, the Empress and practically everyone else in this war-struck world had committed at one point or another, but he never truly saw what a dead body looked like before. He knew death and loss, but still had yet to see it for himself, the moment when the last breath left a lung, when the last drop of blood coalgulated into crimson residue, when the heart gave its last beat before surrendering itself to the dead exhaustion of a sleep, one that would last for eternity and more to come. Daniel had never truly seen death for the finalty it stood for, only hearing of it through stories, second-hand relay from another's perspective, and only through the magical ability of Max that through which the death only seemed like an implausible route of action, one to be rewound back into unbeing, to be thwarted from the initial planning and to be improvised upon. In all sense of the word that Daniel had seen, it was only a temporal setback, never permanent, never grave serious. Not until then, not until the boy had stared at the corpse with shock evident on his face, until he had tore his gaze away and back to his brother, eyes wide and unblinking.

He himself had observed much from the memory of his other self, and even so he hadn't seen any death before his very own eyes, none except for his own father's and the police officer's. Though with both previous cases, they were granted a much merciful death; the memory of his own torture was his first-ever encounter with gore and carnage, soon to be followed by a streak of war crimes flashing one after another during the memory sync. Though that was the extent of it all; he never saw any real death other than that, up until today, staring down at the corpse of an unfortunate fellow human being as himself, their only difference a dagger protruding from one's skull marking the only fatal wound that had bled his lifeforce out entirely, leaving behind nothing but a mere vessel of flesh and bone.

Gathering his courage, Daniel finally mustered enough resolve to pull away from the safety of his hoodie and face the body. "I think he's dead."

"Well, duh. There's nothing we could do for him. Let's go." He made the first step to move on, grabbing the boy's hand and pulling him along, half expecting the boy to dig his heels into the ground and refuse to budge even an inch as he threw another one of his shit-fit. Though to his own surprise, Daniel pushed him aside, kneeling down to the pool of blood and – he couldn't believe in his own eyes – tried to remove the weapon.

"Daniel! What're you…?"

"Look! It's the same symbol with the one on his shoulder badge!" He pointed out, and only just then that Sean noticed the corpse was cladded in a suit of armor, not unlike those that he and Daniel were wearing, albeit with different coloured garments. Distinctive of the Burian traditional soldier armor, his belt, shoulder piece and kneecaps were red, as opposed to their own yellow stripes specialty of the Resistance. Though with the lack of supplies, the custom armory soon expired its mere decorative value to be replaced with black ironclad, much more durable and affordable than the old platinum. Such loss of tradition was one to be grieved for at first, until practically almost the entire population of the small nation was wiped out entirely, anyone bearing the mark of any colour other than red also wearing a target on their back and asking to be taken down at first sight.

Ever since then, Egor and practically every other nation known an active ally of the Resistance were forced to drop everything of their own, their coat of arm, their emblem, their colour, basically everything that was rich in history and culture that one's civilization could be proud of. It was probably another effort of the Empress to take in every conquered kingdom and turn them into an extension of her own, he realized, and it would have worked very well had it not backfired on herself, leading to many pissed off country working together under the common affiliation of the Resistance to thwart Burian of its derranged Empress. As was the result, the Resistance consisted of men from many origins, each of them clinging onto their lost culture with every last ounce of pride and honour as they carried the last of their home with them on their shoulderpads, regardless of putting themselves in risk of agitating the enemy even more. Those people got nothing left to lose, and as such they fought with everything they've got to offer, with tenacity and viciousness.

Such was the reason why upon first escaping to a Resistance hideout, him and Daniel still cladded in borrowed garments bearing the Burian coat of arms pretty much almost costed them their lives, had it not been for Sean's sorry state and their young age redeeming them the benefit of a doubt in the eyes of those still retaining their humane nature. It was a pity they did not survive the harsh war, but in exchange for their trust was his and Daniel's quick rise to power within the ranks of the Resistance, both from their efficiency in battle and from Daniel's peculiarity. If the memory of his other served him right, they were the elitists among the most prized soldiers of the force when they engaged in that last direct frontal assault into the heart of Burian, where he and Daniel had ended up in the Empress tower's and into the storm to a whole other world.

Their entire journey, though bizzare as it was, had ended after the memory sync, or at least in his recollection it had. Whatever happened to them beyond that remained a mystery to him, and practically everyone else in any reality other than they themselves, and the only other person.

Max was the only one who knew what had happened to them. And if there was anyone who could explain why this version of Sean and Daniel they've run into were nothing alike what he'd remembered, then it was her and her only.

And he was determined to pry it out from her lips with all he had, the first chance he'd got.

* * *

They moved on, after Daniel'd pointed out that the man was murdered recently from his warm blood and by his own weapon, which could only mean either it was someone from the Resistance who was extremely skilled in combat expertise to strip him of his own armory and kill him within the moment it took for him to register anything to put up a struggle, or that it was a turncoat among the Burian's ranks themselves taking the man by surprise. Sean had concluded the boy watched too much Sherlock and urged them to move onwards, though he found his thoughts drifting constantly back to the cause of death and the possibilities, either of which unnerved him to no end. Were he an active participant of the war directly involved in one affiliation or the other, at least one of them could work to his benefit, but as the neutral third party that they were, he could only hope that whatever it was would not interfere with their plan any more than surface level.

What their plan was still remained an enigma for the moment being, though. Right now, Sean could think of nothing further than walking to the end of that tunnel and see where it led. He would cross that bridge when he get to it then, because seeing how his life had gone spiralling downwards consistently ever since that day in Seattle, to form another plan and attempt to gain any control on his future would be a futile waste of time. It wouldn't matter anyway if he got suck to another dimension entirely in the process, had all of his hard work rewound away in a moment, or got himself killed somewhere in-between, which was apparently the new tendency of his life as of late.

"Sean, look." Daniel gripped his hand tightly, snapping him out of his silent musing and forcing him to slow down as he followed the boy's pointed finger to a splash of red blood on the wall aside, only half dry. When he placed a tentative finger on the trail of crimson liquid, he retracted his finger upon the slick, sticky sensation of warm blood, his fingertip red. Somebody was slaughtered nearby, and judging by the fresh trail it couldn't have been any longer than ten minutes ago.

"Let's keep walking." He resolved, earning the boy's agreement with a grim nod. Without actually saying it, they both understood the unspoken implication that something or someone was awaiting for them at the end of that tunnel, and that they were already too close to turn back then. The only way to go was forward, and there they advanced, none dared looking back behind shoulders to the carnage they'd left behind.

After a good mile or something close to it later, they arrived at the end of the tunnel, a double gate built with solid gold. A trail of blood was still dripping from the tiny gap between the two slab of doors, too small to have a peak inside, but still large enough to allow sound to travel through, although very distorted and indistinct. He himself could not make out what they were speaking about behind those walls, but he could recognize that voice anywhere.

It was himself and Daniel, shouting over something that sounded eerily similar to clangs of swords clashing and guttural yelp of flesh piercing. Something much resembling a struggle of some sort, something he'd pierced together with all the splatter of blood and the body they'd passed through on the way.

"Sean?" The boy whispered to him, his question raised, uncertain. "Should we interfere?"

There it was, the million dollar question, one he himself was mulling over the whole duration of their trip. Though the actual ability to make a choice was just an illusion, one instantly dissipated upon hearing the sound of Daniel shrieking.

Even if he was in two minds before that, the boy crying out from the other side of the door negated any second thought. He knew it was unreasonable, that the boy wasn't even his brother, at least not his own, and maybe even nothing alike the Daniel whom he remembered from other him's memory, but quite frankly he gave it all a middle finger. Screwing around with destiny be damned; there would be no world where he can let the boy suffer without making damn sure with everything in his ability that the offender would suffer million times worse.

Placing a hand on the door handle, he gripped it tight. "We're heading in."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

Sometimes, there're such things one couldn't help but wonder. At the time being, Max had many things to marvel about. To name a few, why her powers failed, why Daniel's power failed, why the Namarian boys were still alive and well, why they remembered nothing from their last encounter in the beach house, why they had saved them from the pack of wolves only to incarcerate them in steel cages, and where were that wagon taking her and Chloe to. But above all, Max only had one burning question in mind, searing all fibres of her being with scorching hot intensity and taking up all her awareness.

_Where was Chloe?_

Someone bumped into her back when the vehicle skidded to a sudden stop, pushing her to an upright sitting position. That someone was out of her direct line of vision, but she could see blue reflecting off a nearby metal beam of the cage she was being trapped in. As if it wasn't enough, a grunt of apology was muttered softly into her ears, along with a tentative nudge behind her back.

Strangely, just acknowledging the girl's presence around her calmed her frayed nerves. Perhaps she was overreacting, but to hell and over with being embarassed. She'd lost her twice already and countless times before that she couldn't recall, she would be damned if she took her guard off for one second only.

Opening her eyes, Max took a moment to brace herself before the inevitable flow of memory rushing to catch up could assault her all at once.

They'd forcefully manhandled her and Chloe – or, more accurately, Daniel's telekinetic force had – into a wagon of some sort, before shutting tight the cage bars before her eyes. They didn't possess the strength to put up any resistance, but even in Chloe's best state she could not fend off against a fully-enraged Daniel in his prime, let alone she herself without her power and not a grain of combat experience. In the corner of her vision, she saw the boys being tied up and thrown on another wagon, theirs with much less rough-handling and more tentative care, she noticed. Sean, after taking a direct blow to the head by, well, for want of a better term to call him, _other Sean_, was out of commision quick, and paired with Daniel who had already passed out from the lack of air before, made for easy targets; they themselves were as still as pieces of log.

Now that she remembered, they were taken away in another direction entirely. The boys took it upon themselves to personally escort the other ride, leaving their cage to travel unsupervised on a whole different route. _Strange_. _Shouldn't her ride be a little bit tighter?_

After all, in their perspectives it was the Empress herself that she was mistaken for, and from what other Daniel had told her, she gathered they viewed her as a figure of power, capable of such feats far outreaching their imagination. She could understand them trying to kill her at first sight, or at least watching her every movements, but to stuff her in a cage and let their wagon roll by itself? Definitely a risky option considering she was one to be granted the power of temporal manipulation. With just a flick of her fingers, and she could've easily freed herself.

She flicked her hand, again and again, until something struck her as odd about what she was attempting to accomplish. Slapping a hand to forehead, she sighed, mutturing curses at her own clumsiness. _Duh, _her power failing her was the reason she was still even here in the first place. _Stupid Max_.

"I thought you said you can't rewind?" Chloe asked from behind.

"Yeah, I forgot. Still can't, apparently." She grumbled, agitated at the helplessness. During their entire journey she'd always been helpless to do anything other than rewind and grasp at broken straws, but at least before she still had the option to do it all over again. Being stuck in the moment, and not a much spacious one at that, kind of _suck_.

"Hold still. I'll see if I can undo the latch." Chloe offered, pushing her aside and reaching out her skinny arms through narrow bars for the flimsy padlock. "This one isn't that hard. Give me a moment."

"You sure you can do it?" She was uncertain, but the girl turned back to face her, eyes glinting sharp with grit.

"Honey, I remember everything your Chloe does, and that includes lockpicking. This one shouldn't take more than a few minutes at best, given the right tool." Retracting her arms, she held a fingernail close to her mouth, and bit down.

"What're you-

"Watch." The girl chomped on the hard appendage until it gave away under her relentless jaws, a clear cresent-shaped extension of nail. "This one trick had saved me many a time before, so you better hope I still got it."

Snaking the small makeshift tool out of the thin gap between the bars, the girl started working on the lock in her speechless amazement. "Other Chloe knew how to do this?"

"Just the lockpicking, hippy. The nail part's mostly my improvisation, though I doubt she couldn't think of something even more ingenious than this, given the right push. Anyway," the rebel paused, gesturing with her hand to the cage door now widely opened and the lockpad unlatched on her other hand, "et voila. There you have it, two tickets to freedom coming right up."

"Geez. That's useful." Max commented, taking the liberty to be the first one to scurry out of the cage without any furthur prompt from the blue-haired, who struggled to put her five-foot-nine body out of the tiny door to catch up.

It was fortunate that their vehicle was autopilot with a speed that allowed them to drop out relatively unharmed. Their vehicle didn't roll to a stop, however.

"Uh, Chloe? You think we should follow and see where it lead?" It was pointless to gain freedom only to run on hot pursuit for the same wagon they'd tried so hard to escape from just seconds ago, but the dense trees surrounding her was rather discouraging to the initiative of finding her own path through the woods, especially in nighttime.

"Not sure it's gonna bring us anywhere close to the boys, but between these dense forestry our chance to find them are slim to none. Let's stick with the vehicle then." The girl suggested, already jogging ahead. Putting her legs to work, Max trodded along, debating over an important matter.

"Uh, do you think if we're jogging along already, shouldn't we just sit in the cage and enjoy the ride in the first place?" It was ridiculous, she knew, but somehow she got the impression that for whatever reason the boys had hefted her onto that cage-on-wheels, they were already accounting for their prominent escape, and that either way it would work out in their benefit.

"I don't see why not. Hop on." The blue-haired took the jump, settling herself over the tipsy balance of the cage and extending an arm to Max. "Grab hold."

If it was her Chloe, she would've taken the hand in an instance. But as it was the world infamous assassin of Namaria, she took a moment to mull over, then decided against it. "No thanks. Just… move aside."

Raising her hands with palms out in surrender, the girl relented. "Suit yourself."

Max gathered her strength, before making the leap. The cage was not that tall, but the wheels added a couple feet to its overall height, forcing Max to bend her back at an uncomfortable angle to reach the purchase and heft herself up. Seeing the struggle, Chloe raised a brow, sceptical. "Sure you don't need any help?"

"I'm fine." She grouched out through clenched teeth, the small physical exertion already wearing her out. Though she didn't see the look of hurt flashed over Chloe's face in the next fraction of a second before it was gone, carefully masked under layers of indifference and neutrality.

The two of them steadied themselves as they spent their ride through the rest of the night in companionable silence, moonlight basking over rigid postures as they both could not muster the strength to break the ice and speak out loud, apart from the occasional observation of a throny bush or a wild predator lurking from afar. It was every bit as tenuous and tiring as it was stressful, to be so close to Chloe and yet so far away, the girl still the very same girl who she'd came to know and love, but at the same time she knew was nothing alike. Left alone to her musing, she wished above all else to be rekindled with the girl who she could truly trust and call her own, not this stranger who bore the face, the memory and the speech of her most beloved as if it was something unsacred, impure, casual.

She was Chloe herself, so it was her who was being unreasonable, she'd chastised herself. Though she couldn't help the sentiments; the girl bore so much resemblance to her Chloe that it _hurt_ just to be in such close proximity to her, and yet she was unable to utter anything more coherent than a snort or a giggle. She knew the girl could and would understand her, if she so chose to open up and pour out every bottled up agony to her heart's content.

But that was the problem, because, see here, she couldn't bring herself to do it, not because the wound was still sore and tender, nor was it because she didn't trust the girl enough, but because she lacked the courage to face it all again. The love – beautiful and romantic, them experiencing the journey all over as if it was fresh anew for both of them, trying out everything and being helplessly head-over-heels for one another. The protectiveness – dominant, feral, wild, them willing to go to any extent for the other, regardless of moral ethics, of being selfish, because their love would last, would win it out, would always be worth it in the end.

But then came the inevitable, like so many times before. Then came the heartbroken, the parting, the tragedy that would mark the end of them. Soon after came the part where Max would rip a whole across the timestream to travel back and mess things up for the worse because she couldn't bear the pain on her own, only to come to the realization that she couldn't change it no matter what. They were destined for regret, sorrow and misery, she soon came to the conclusion, and as such she could not bear the due process all over again; her abused mental could only take so much before it relapsed back to the dark place of mind where she used to be not that much long ago. Everyday, it called to her like a mantra, luring her back to her old ways, and everytime she would let herself be driven away willingly until the last moment when she would snap out of it.

The moment the first Chloe left, she also left a hole in her heart, one she'd worked so hard to fill in with all sort of time-tampering, and eventually even with a whole other Chloe. But even that girl had left, bringing down all the hard work she'd managed up until that point, leaving the wound afresh, the blood flowing freely, and the pain anew. Twice had it occurred to her, and she had learnt the lesson, never to open up her heart or let anyone in again, for fear of the third time Chloe was bound to be taken away from her. And that third time, she knew she wouldn't be strong enough to survive. The pain, it would be too much, it would consume her into the void itself. And she would become the monster she feared most; her alter ego, a manifestation of her unhealthy obssession, the one that had ruined lives, destroyed empires and waged terrors.

She would become the Empress, if she were to fall for Chloe all over again. And though she was ridden with borderline madness, she knew that was one line she could never cross, not because she wasn't capable of, but because there was no returning beyond that point.

But that was also the matter. She knew she could not allow it to happen, but the illusion of choice, of freedom to pursue, and of taking matters into her own hands – all that was just that, an illusion from the beginning. She knew the cycle was already set in motion, its grip was one almighty and powerful, one not to be defied or broken free of.

She knew she would fall in love with Chloe once again. And like the many times before that, she was helpless to stop it from happening.

* * *

The trip drew through the night and into early morning, but she couldn't get any sleep in between, too consumed by the incessant concern nagging at her consciousness. Though she did manage to fall into some sort of a trance-like state where she dozed off dreamily, blissfully unaware of any immediate surroundings beyond herself and the blue-haired. Chloe did lay back and rest for a while, but even with her eyes closed Max could tell from her uneven breathing that she was wide awake, listening intently for anything that might present itself as danger. Max understood that; in Chloe's dangerous line of work, that tiny moment of closing one's eyelids and laying one's back down was more than enough the rest she needed, because to let oneself be fully submerged in drowsiness would certainly be the end of her, considering how many out there were actively aiming for her throat at any given point. Being a spy surely brought a handful of nemesis to one's personal hitlist; that much was certain, but the true extent to which she was wanted dead Max doubted her assumption had barely even scratched at the surface of. For now, her only hope was that the tip of the iceberg – _their _ iceberg, seeing as they were stuck with each other for better or worse – would hold itself steady enough for them to last the night without getting their throats slit. Not very ideal, Max acknowledged, but closest to their circumstances anyway.

That said, Max did not claim she was in anyway capable of spending the entire journey without a blink of sleep, especially with her streak of staying awake for the better part of the week, with little else than a drug-induced coma being the closest thing to actual rest she'd had in the midst of all the ordeals taking them by storm as of late. As due, Max could not hold out for long, but soon succumbed to the irresistible urge of the sleep, the wagon's rough wooden wheel beating a heavy, yet rhythmic tempo against hard gravel pathway setting the perfect staccato to escort her to the land of the dreaming somewhen after the sun had risen well above the horizon, peaking out from behind long mountain range that seemingly stretched on endlessly in the distance. By the time slivers of golden sunray were dancing on her skin and radiating warmth, the girl had been long asleep, dead to the world and whatever may transpire within.

Seeing the girl finally letting down the rest of her guard, Chloe huffed out a breath of relief. She might not have shown it, but in these past few days, acquiring a whole new set of memory from an entirely different version of herself was, all things considered, emotionally taxing. She took to very ordinary matters with a whole new perspective, whereas things that used to be as casual as making a kill seemed terribly monstrous and morally inane, while such unthinkable behaviour such as simply being nice and caring to a fellow human being beyond the bare necessity level of comradeship on the battlefield seemed oddly peaceful. The old her would have frowned at that, while claiming herself to be getting soft – which, in her line of work, also was synonymous to showing weakness and letting oneself be killed. Equipped with a different set of memories entirely altogether, she found it not as unbearable as she had once made it out to be; perhaps even a bit fond and pleasant.

Shrugging the early morning dew off her shoulders, she relaxed tightly-coiled muscles and rolled her shoulders, earning a few satisfying pop as the joint pushed itself back into its natural alloted range of movement. To be honest, having one's entire life perspective turned upside-down in such a short span of time was nothing short of terrifying at first mention, but she took it rather calmly, if not well even. Perhaps it had always been the outlook she was supposed to view life with, or perhaps it fit so well because they were practically one and the same, compatible down to the most microscopic of genetic component, but Chloe tried not to think too much about it. As her old lifestyle usually requested fast-paced action and critical thinking, time wasted mulling over past events meant less time to focus on the here and now, thus potentially costing her her life. Eitherway, adaptability was something she was more than accustomed to, and as such she had already accepted that she was now no longer merely the Namaria's most deadly assassin, but also the alternate counterpart of the punk teenager from another reality altogether. That, she could live with.

Though what she couldn't live with, was knowing Max was uneasy around her. It was ridiculous, she knew, that Max wasn't even her Max, but a whole different one entirely, and yet she couldn't help it. It was something coded down to her DNA, or at least it felt that way, because no matter which version of Max she was facing, there would always be that protective surge that hammered loudly in her chest and demanded that the girl be taken into the safety of her arms and provided protection from the cold, cruel reality she only knew too well. Rationally, she knew she didn't stand a chance at defending the girl against something even her time-rewinding attribute couldn't work its way around, or even if such a thing existed at all in the first place, but there was hardly anything rational about the matter. It wasn't even a conscious decision, but rather a deeply rooted autonomous one, whereas she had no choice in whether or not to comply to its all-powerful call or not.

In the end it all boiled down to the hard fact that she was Chloe, and Chloe protects Max, whomever the two of them were.

She didn't even make an attempt to fight against the instinct, such was how Daniel had gotten out of his heavy sedative the first time around back in the national park; she simply ceased to stick another chlorine-dampened napkin across his mouth when his breathing started hitching, too shocked with the knowledge that in doing so she might possibly risk another of his power burst, putting the alternate Max across the globe from them in danger, no matter how far-fetched it would be. Thus, the boy woke up, got one look at her, and started screaming; the typhoon bursting from his hand the beginning to all this mess.

She horribly regretted that decision, however, seeing as it led, one event to another, to her uncovering the true nature of the Empress, the ultimate traitor from the beginning, working her way through Chloe's defences when she was still vulnerable and sore from the lost of her one true love, taking the advantage of being a splitting image from the raw wound in her open heart. Deep down she'd always known, that this woman who looked exactly alike her lost girlfriend, with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of the world around them and carrying all sorts of complicated technology far beyond their time and age, was in no way the girl she'd yearned for. And yet, she'd allowed herself to be fooled, to open the gate and admit the venomous python entrance to her bleeding wound, bearing her vulnerability to its open fangs, and turning her back to the creature, providing it with the perfect opportunity. Time and time again, she made up the perfect little story to tell herself, one about how Max was Max, and that nothing anyone could say or do can change that. Telling oneself a lie enough, and one would start to believe in it as well, becoming another trapped pawn in the feedback loop where the lie only got ingrained deeper and the truth buried deeper underneath.

Her delicate web of lies and deception still remained intact, though it was the foundation that was uprooted, everything tumbling undone by a fact she should have realized years ago, a bluff she should have called out on a night once upon a time. Max – no, she should be addressed by her real name – the Empress, was never her Max in the first place. She never really loved her, not even in the beginning, not somewhere in between, and ultimately not after all that they've been through together. After everything, she was still a tool, a means to an end, another string in the masterplan web, a vital one nonetheless, one that involved an unrequited love on her end, one that was bound to be snapped when the time was right, when her purpose had already been served, when she was no longer of use. Playing the faithful lover from the beginning until then, all she really was was nothing more than a mindless minion, one eager to be thrown into scorching flame and freezing frost to prove the authenticity of her feelings, while to the Empress it was little more than a ploy to her act.

And that was what had hurt her the most. Thousand times worse than the physical torment the malevolent dictator had applied to her body – it wasn't even tethering on the edge of ticklish compared to what she'd been forced to endure as a part of her spec ops – or the pain of the betrayal, when she'd been forcefully yanked out from the natural timeflow into the apparent rescue of the Empress's time sphere, only for it to reveal itself as a full-blown interrogation.

It was the heartbreak that forced the breath out of her, that drew tears from her once thought to be dormant ducts. It was the revelation that made her wished so badly, so desperately for it all to end, to give up on herself and her will to live. It was the confirmation spoken from that cold, unemotional lips, that blank face that bore no resemblance to the woman she'd learnt to love and care so deeply about, and the lashes brought down from those same hands that had caressed her skin on cold, frosty days that made her scream in unspoken agony, the pain too great to be vocalized. That, was ultimately what had turned her life entirely upside-down and send everything tumbling into disarrayed chaos, as her heart got shattered into a million pieces, far beyond mending ever again.

That, was when Chloe had openly wept the second time in her life, but yet again for the same reason as before, grieving for a lost love. Beyond all explanation, she knew she would never get to see them again, the first one not without evoking numbing sadness, and the second not without evoking stark betrayal, bleeding wound yet still too raw to touch. In a way, her whole life built between the two equally traumatic point was just a lie, the illusion of happiness and the sense of belonging no more than an intricate trick to be played ruthlessly on her emotions. As it was, she was now thoroughly lost, without a single clue of where to go now that the entire world seemed out there to get her.

And within the midst of pain, lost and anger, she found Max – other world Max, someone who'd just lost equally as much as herself, being forced to give up on her love through peaks at the other Chloe's memory. As of yet she was still uncertain as to how the sync mechanism works, but just as well as it did, she had no desire to find out why. Before her was Max, broken, hurt, and that was all she needed to know. She would throw herself at the girl, letting the protective surge take away her ability to feel pain, rendering her numb to her own anguish as she focused on the girl first and put her above all else, not unlike what she'd always done before. In her twisted sense of logic, the old and familiar was the safe path to tread on, and so long as it provided a distraction to her own pain, she would welcome the girl into her life, even only if it meant prolonging the inevitable just a little bit longer. She would have to face her demons in the end, but at least not now, and that was good enough for her.

Propping an elbow beneath her head, Chloe stared up at the trees covering above their heads, branches reaching out thick enough to cover the sunlight up almost entirely, save for a few slither of sunlight barely making their way through the crevice and crook of the lush vegetation. It was getting on late in the morning, and yet she could not find in herself a need to sleep. Instead, she closed her eyes, letting sharp senses of years of training to take in her surrounding through the peaceful harmony of early morning in Namaria. Birds humming, insects crawling, stream rushing – all was making themselves blatantly clear to her perception through their lively song. She let the calming sensation wash over herself, drowning out the bothersome concerns of life, bringing a rare twitch to the corner of her lips, one she would viciously deny to anyone who stood bold enough to accuse her of such later on. She smiled, basking in the early day and the scent of the girl dead asleep by her side, chest rising and dropping in rhythm to her own, temporarily swept away from her edge of paranoia and grounded in the moment.

Yet, such a tranquil picture could never last long, a common pattern they should have known better than to believe in by now. The two girls laid comfortably on the shaking wagon as it drew closer to its destination, the danger lurking far ahead unbeknownst to them both.

* * *

From high above the branches, a black pair of marble-like eyes trailed across the wagon and its two blissfully unaware passengers, drinking in every details. It was tasked with one simple mission, to track them and provide intel of their whereabouts at all time, a task not that entirely different from any other reconaissance it had been tasked with before. The crow had an outlier ability, one faint and very much inproportionate to be deemed magic-worthy of any sort, but still magical nonetheless in its origin. It could detect magic, and on occasion even the power of the being wielding it, but one of the reasons why it had never been privy of displaying the ability was due to its incompetence in being accurate.

Yet, there was something strange about the being it was being commissioned to follow, a source of power too great to be anything acting out of place in sporadic burst, and too consistent to be of an alchemical source. It knew magic usually when it had inspected the object for long enough, but the reading it had on the being was instantaneous from the moment it got close. Somehow, this unnatural feeling told it that whoever it was that was reclining on that wagon, was no mere hostile target closing in on the border of the Resistance.

Its wings were sensitive, able to pick up even the slightest shift in wind current, and yet its feathers kept fluttering the whole flight, affected by something far too unnatural to be just another storm. It knew that the target was dangerous, and that the mission itself wasn't for precautionary purpose, as it was commissioned by the Wizard in person himself. Though the full extent of how powerful the being was, it had little knowledge; its mind was simple, with the one mission a bright thought above all minor distractions, and it kept on flying in silent, reporting everything back through the magical bond with its master without a second guess.

Though if it had been just the tiniest bit more evolved, it would have learned that the being was none other than the time-bender herself, heading towards the cavern where a very delicate trap had been set waiting for her, one designed to be inescapable, to the mortal at least.

* * *

Warren peaked into the orb on one end of his oak-coloured staff, making certain that the magically bound wagon was still carrying its target to the predestined path. The enchantment to make the wagon roll on autopilot was a wild bet, one simple enough that even an apprentice in sorcery could unbind with a simple incantation. Everything about it screamed child's play, which had been exactly the plan; to play on her arrogance and let her put down her guards.

He'd calculated it right; make it seem effortless and simple enough, and she wouldn't give it much thought – at least not enough contemplation to realize it was a trap. The plan was nothing infallible, and yet that in itself was enough of a punchline to get the Empress hooked. She either suspected nothing, or noticed and didn't care neither way because she was so confident of her ability. Either way, they got what they want, for them to follow the wagon on an already set course.

Of course, the plan, upon first suggested, met with such vociferous objection from the Burian boys – Sean and that little gremlin of his, Daniel – that he had originally thought the operation was a no-go. Not very hard to understand, seeing as his plan consisted of the first part, which was to let the Empress – after somehow managing to capture her and drugging her with yet another one of Kate's non-lethal tranquilizer – travel alone, it the darkness, without neither an escort or proper locking mechanism that could ensure her captivity. When they sketched the plan, it was already bore in mind that they were dealing with the deadliest spy of Namaria as well as the Empress herself, and given her skillsets, it probably wouldn't take much longer than a couple of minutes to undo the lock. Keeping them inside the cage was implausible, so the general idea was to fake incompetence and allow them total freedom, so as to create the false illusion that they were in control.

He was quite satisfied, watching them through the crystal ball, that his predictions turned out more accurate than most.

The first part of their plan, to trick the Empress into a more compromising position so that they could approach her, was actually the most tricky part, seeing as none of their magic, potions, or well-thought out scheme had any considerable effect on her. Such was the reason why the boys objected so loudly in the beginning; Kate had to slip some particularly nasty concontion of her meddling into their water ration a night, and the next day they were both happily content with letting Warren and his high-risk plan have its go, as long as he could guarantee the ultimate demise of the Empress and her Second. He honestly didn't know what he would do if his best friend, Kate Marsh, hadn't been such a powerful alchemist.

Fortunately for them, their scouts that night – none other than Sean and Daniel themselves – found the Empress, along with her small entourage, surrounded by a wild pack of wolves. Though why the Empress didn't use her magic to push back the wolves was beyond him; as it was, he was too preoccupied with their running master scheme to point out the obvious and pay attention to anything that didn't fit right. It was decided on the scene right then and there that they would initiate the plan that night, taking advantage of the already compromising position the Empress was in to fulfil the first part of their operation.

Which was, quite literally, to knock them out and load them up the wagon. The rest of their entourage would be escorted back to their base of operation to be taken in as prisoners, potential leverage for later in the war. Or, better yet, a lack of one, if their plan succeeded and the Empress got terminated that night.

The next part of his plan was based on common sense, because unlike many tyrants throughout their history, the Empress wasn't insane. She was strategic, careful, and that was what made her so difficult to deal with. It was also what guaranteed him that they would willingly follow the self-moving wagon through the night jungle, as preferable to wandering lost on their own in the middle of the forest at night, to become easy prey to nocturnal predators. It was a matter of self-preservation, something he knew the Empress had in abundance of, and as such he was able to predict her behavioral response to the situation just as she did.

The next part of the plan was already set in motion, and all that there was to do then was to sit still and wait.

No matter how powerful she was, the Waterfall would wash away any magical attribute of a sorcerer, hence making her vulnerable to the delicate trap. They had planned on this for years, and after losing the element of surprise the plan would cease effect. They would only get the one chance at it. That was why it was going to work, and there was simply no way they can afford failure for this mission; the stakes were simply too high. No matter how many Burian soldiers they had slayed, none would matter so long as the Empress remained standing. All of them who had lay down their lives for the cause, all of the sacrifices they've made, all would have been for naught any second the Empress herself was still breathing.

It would end today, all of it, and he would make damn sure of that.

* * *

Just when Max's restless snooze finally transition into the sleep her body had since long yearned for, the horrible stench of rotten, decomposed organic corpse assaulted her olfactory sensors, bringing her wide awake in less than a second, still gagging from the smell and retching from the source of it. Though her sense of reason came back to her relatively simultaneously, and as such she managed to hold back the bile from spilling over her closed-up throat a second before it splattered all across the blue-haired, who, by some miraculous ability, was still dead asleep, unaffected by the odour in the tiniest bit.

Their cart was still moving on autopilot as before, though rather than travelling on soft, beaten-in dirt track through the woods, the wooden wagon wheel now rattled viciously as the mysterious force kept it rolling consistently on hard gravel, propelling them forward and deeper yet into the dense forestry. Max looked up and noticed the sun shining bright above her head, albeit not in the same position as she had recalled seeing it from before, cascading their shadows onto the ground an indistinguishable blotch a good few inches long. That meant positive news at least; it wasn't very late yet, and they still got quite a few hours before it got dark, which probably should buy them a couple few more hours before it got dark enough for the vicious wolf pack to emerge and become a real threat again. Until then, they were, in a sense, comparatively safe, and seeing how low her life had spiralled itself down to as of late, she would take it.

Yet, despite the calm and peaceful nature of the woods, something just didn't feel _right_. The sun was shining bright and radiating warmth, birds were singing in perfect harmony, trees were standing perfectly still and Chloe was still sound asleep right aside her. She knew she should shake off the irrational concern and start putting in an effort to locate where they were, or better yet how to get out of there and back to her world, perhaps think of a way to stop the Empress in the process would be nice. Yet, her mind refused to cooperate, its attention continuously spanning itself thin and covering every smallest detail her senses had brushed over, namely the horrendous smell she had yet to be able to identify. And whatever that hideous foul-smelling scent was, it was surely not relenting; if anything only getting more concentrated as the cart moved onwards.

Quickly, her mind rushed across all science experiment sessions, and the smell somehow got associated with a rotten egg, put in a secure jar with airtight lid suddenly cracked open after being there for about a week or so. Her not so helpful imagination helped supply the various scenario where there would be a flesh-eating monster with carcasses of unfortunate preys it had yet to fully devour somewhere later on their gravel path, and that encountering it would be an inevitability like so many horror movies she'd been talked into watching by Chloe when they were young and foolish.

The thought certainly put shudders running across the length of her spine, seeing as the clattering noise their wooden wagon made with the hard surface of the path surely wasn't considered remotely subtle under any circumstances, therefore alerting whatever creature of their impending arrival if such even existed. If they were in any ordinary zoo or rainforest she wouldn't even give the notion a second thought, but as they were treading on magical reality ground, she couldn't help but classify it as a possible, if not even plausible, scenario. Surely such a creaure of such abominable nature wouldn't exist anywhere, she reassured herself, and tried to make her heartbeat less frantic for fear that it might attract the – imaginary, Max, not real – carnivour's appetite.

No such luck though, because the moment she got herself steady enough to sit back against the cage, a deep, gut-wrenching growl emitted from somewhere deep behind the branches, startling Chloe into sudden awareness. Were Max any calmer, she could've appreciate the super spy's incredible ability to snap to full attention seconds after waking from deep slumber, but as it was Max barely noticed anything beyond the growl that set her nerves on fire and her own panic surging up within her mind. Her hands trembled, her eyes twitched, and she pushed her already frayed nerves to its end trying to scan the perimeter for any movement, the sickening odour only adding to her terror of the threat that just got much, much more real.

"What is that?" Chloe snapped, joining Max on the frantic head-turning to search for whatever may be the cause of that sound, already shifted into a posture that allowed for both defensive and offensive actions to be taken any second without even the smallest delay. Though Max couldn't afford to take her eyes off the surrounding for even a moment and marvel at it; the growl just repeated itself again, this time shorter and deeper, not unlike a disatisfied grunt of annoyance. Max shuddered twice in the span of a minute when she realized it could be irritated that their wagon had trepassed on its territory and awoken it from its rest.

"Did you hear that?" She asked, partly to make sure the ability of speech still hadn't escaped her, and mostly to elicit a human response from her company, if anything then to shake her out of the panic-ridden trance.

"Yeah. It sounded unnatural… Whatever it was, I don't think it means well." Replied Chloe, tactical mind already put into the instinctive task of analyzing and assessing the level of threat they were facing, as well as coming up with best route of action to be taken against it. So far, she had managed little beyond the point of "non-human" and "aggressive".

"The smell, it's horrible. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it might be decaying corpse." Max announced, suddenly frightened by her own assumption. As if in response, the growl replied, this time with a long, high-pitched squeal that somehow was all the same as menacing and intimidating as the previous ones.

"I think it wants to eat us." Chloe decided, in a fraction of a second even pleased with herself for piercing together such an accurate conclusion, but was quick to realize what she had said when the colour bled out from her face in the next.

"Run?"

"Run."

On cue, they both sprung up from their coiled position on the wagon and sprinted in the opposite direction of where the growl had came from, pushing their strength into running as if their lives depended on it. Max couldn't even spare the breath to appreciate the irony of that expression with a snort; as it was she was still short of it in her attempt to distance herself from the source of the growl as much as possible. Chloe, whose legs were still limping from her sitting sleeping position earlier still managed to run a few feet before her, well-atoned muscles and regular training paired with the nature of her work made for physical attributes that Max simply couldn't catch up with, not even if she tried. They managed a few feet, before the sound, deep and guttural, repeated, this time from somewhere right behind their back.

Max felt the phantom warmth of its breath tickling the back of her neck, raising a long trail of goosebumps in its wake. She had no illusion; she knew it was right up and behind her, ready to devour her whole in one big gulp if she so much as stagger for a nanosecond. Needless to say, she was so terrified that it was a miracle she managed to hold back her urinal bodily function from making a scene and worsening the situation any more.

And just that very exact moment, the cosmic alignment of the broad, infinity universe deemed it proper timing to send a seemingly unfortunate string of completely chaotic and random events on a collison course, her own gory ending as the predetermined destination. A crow cawed from somewhere above her head, sending a flurry of small critters scrambling out of their hive on a distant branch, offsetting the bird peaked atop said appendage to flutter its wing and flew straight sky-forward, East-headed. Its long wingspan brushed against a precariously-positioned rock clinging dangerously over the edge of the treetop, sending it toppling down and tumbling across the hard gravel surface, right to the spot where her foot would next make contact with, on her breathless sprint for survival. Max knew she would stumble, even saw the fall before it hit her, but in that small fraction where time seemed to slow down for her to bear judgement of her impending doom, she had no way of diverting her track or side-stepping it, at least not without actually slowing time down – another painful reminder that her power wasn't working at the moment.

Yet, divinity – or whatever it was that was responsible of her reality-bending ability – felt it right to leave her breathlessly astonished, this time not through exhaustion, but through amazement. Because the next thing she knew, everything froze. Like, not as in ice-freezing, temperature dropping suddenly and frostbite cutting off one's sensation at fingertips, but as in sudden cease in movement, total dissipation of momentum, and utter inactivity.

Freeze, as in her time-rewinding ability, the tiny fraction only privy to her consciousness when everything trickle down to an inching flow before completely freezing up. That exact window of time, not a moment earlier when things were still crawling onwards, neither the next moment when everything started playing in reverse. That exact moment, when everything stopped existing within the all-powerful timeflow – whether normal or reverse – and thrived on a whole entirely separate realm of their own. The moment, Max knew, she was no longer a mere time-bender, one of endless duplicates across the infinitely expanding realities.

The experience was surreal, true, but at the moment being Max barely got the chance to appreciate the new occurrence in her latest power manifestation. Without sparing a look back, her instinct drove her onwards, and without a second thought she grabbed Chloe's hand, their long-standing feud and blossoming distrust temporarily forgotten. A small electric current zapped the inside of their intertwined fingers – not entirely unlike the incessant nagging at the crook of her neck whenever she called upon it. Chloe let out a startled yelp, forcefully yanked from frozen inactivity to join Max in their now unique timeflow, and together they made a blind sprint forward, Max not taking any chance with her power – as sudden and unpredictable as it was, she did not wish to leave her survival entirely on the offchance that the time freeze would last long enough for them to get to a safe distance.

They ran, and ran, and ran, until exhaustion gripped at her mind, fatigue cramping down her sore muscles, pulled tendons straining against her every joints, and lack of oxygen burning her lungs, enough that her vision was filled with splotches of ill-coloured purple-green. Aside her, Chloe was panting hard, hand still gripping her own tightly enough that their fingertips turned white from circulation being cut off. Her gorgeous, neon blue hair was slick with sweat, matted into a thick layer close to her scalp, sticking up in all directions giving the word "disheveled" a whole new level of definition. Even without checking herself out on a mirror, she had a good guess of what herself probably looked like at the moment, if not worse. They were none the worse for wear, each having made the journey of approximately a mile on foot in the record time of a few minutes, but finally relieved to be far enough away from the danger that it only loomed in the back of their collective minds as a vague threat. They couldn't hear any thundering footsteps, high-pitched squealing or low rumble in the distance, and with the hard rocky gravel underneath their legs having long transitioned into knee-high wild grass, they were at the very least safe for the foreseeable immediate future.

That was when it finally registered in Max's adrenaline-pumped mind, that she actually froze time.

_Fuck_.

"Did you just…?" The question rolled off the tip of Chloe's tongue, not as effortless as an ordinary question was supposed to be seeing as she had yet managed to stop panting.

"I don't know…" In response to her friend's overly enthusiastic proverbial query, her own was one of a deflated bubble, partly because she herself was uncertain of what had just happened, though mostly because she still hadn't bounce back from the exhaustion enough to formulate a coherent response.

"Holy shit, you just did! That's…"

"Mad?" Max suggested, shrugging nonchalantly. To her, it really wasn't that big of a milestone.

"I was gonna say amazeballs, but that fits, I suppose." Gulping a large mouthful of fresh air, the blue-haired piped. "You just freaking froze time! I mean, you could reverse it, and that's already craze as heck, but to actually put it on pause like you just did? That's a whole new level, way to go, girl!"

"But I'm not sure…"

"Come on, stop being a wet blanket and cheer up! Look on the bright side of things for a change, would you? You just manipulated time on a whole different scale, how awesome's that?" The girl bounced excitedly up and down, taking both her hands into her own and giggling uncontrollably.

Somehow, seeing Chloe that jolly was infectious, because the ridiculous giddiness had started to spread to her as well. "A bit…?"

"That's totally rad, girl! You gotta do that again, someday. No, scratch that. Do it now!" Chloe stared into her eyes with round, expectant orbs of her own, and in that moment the girl was nothing like the deadly assassin she was so infamous for.

"I don't even know how it happened. I freaked out, and it just kind of did. I guess being unable to reverse time means… being able to make it stuck?" She found her own uneasiness bleeding away, staring into that soulful eyes of the girl. And in that blurry moment when the adrenaline pump was still keeping her mind on the clouds, she couldn't get any straight thought in between the constant mantra of _"kiss her, kiss her, kiss her"_ inside her not-so-helpful loony bin of a brain.

"That's like… totally unfair, not that I'm complaining. You lose a power, yet gain another one in the span of less than 24 hours, and somehow I'm okay with it. Makes me wonder if you've saved the whole world in a past life or something." Chloe remarked, half-joking, but the weight of what she'd just insinuated at soon settled heavy as lead in their stomach.

Just like that, the euphoria was gone, and Max was already down on solid ground again, bound too tightly to reality that she didn't think she would ever have a chance of taking off an inch ever again. Her mind no longer buzzed with low-key anticipation, but was rather deafening with overwhelming guilt nagging at her consciousness. In technicality, she knew she'd rewound it from ever happening in the first place, but she couldn't help but feel guilty from the knowledge that she'd deliberately made the choice to let Arcadia Bay burn at a certain point in the past. Suddenly self guilt pulled at her ankle like an anchor tying her down underwater, suffocating and disorienting, not unlike being drowned in a sea of self-torment, and she could feel the guilt filling up her lungs, keeping fresh, healthy air outside as it squeezed painfully in her chest.

"Ehrm, dumb thing to say… you probably should ignore what I just said." Chloe rushed to do damage control, but she was already too late. Whatever left of a moment they've had had dissipated entirely, leaving the dreadfully cold air to stick around in its wake.

"Let's just… move onwards." She dodged, ending the conversation abruptly, and before letting the other girl has any chance of getting any comments in between, she rushed forward, leaving a bedazzled, speechless Chloe to scurry behind.

* * *

It could not, for the love of its life, dictate what had just happened.

The first second, it cawed, like its master had commanded it to. And then the second, the two targets it was tasked with following just vanished into thin air, leaving the bewitched beast a bewildered mess, clawing fruitlessly into thin air where the Empress was supposed to be.

Of course, the whole vicinity was teleportation-proof, so how on Namaria did they get away so quick without the aid of magic?

Fortunately, it was only the eyes and ears of the operation, not the brain itself. It didn't need to be concerned beyond the point of fulfilling its task, and that it had done well enough. The rest, it would leave to more capable – and more evolved – hands, for once glad that it was so unimportant in the chain of order.

* * *

"Did your plan fail?"

"You know if it hadn't, I wouldn't be talking to you." Warren grouched, still grumpy that his well-thought-out plan – the one he'd been scheming for the last three months – had failed, in less than a second.

"Well then, what's plan B then?" Kate asked, with a flick of her wand summoning the impressive, terrifying-looking 7'3'' beast, now useless, and with the next reverting it back into a pile of hay. Between the two of them, he was the tactical planner; Kate was always the better one at anything magical-related, not excluding transfiguration, and it was beyond a matter of questioning that her creation would be so life-like that it gave the Empress and her associate such a scare for once. If they'd known it was only an animated puppet, made realistic by an artistic touch of Kate's glamour spell, they would be beyond pissed off. The idea was quite amusing, really, that they were frightened out of their skins by a dummy, but it stopped being comical when they disappeared totally, rather than continuing running blindly down the waterfall that was set course for them.

"We'll do it ourselves."

"Alright, fine by me if you want to go and get yourself killed. But excuse me if I would require a bit more guarantee than that to put myself in the line of danger like that." Kate wasn't a coward, nor did she really need a reason to go on a life-endangering trip, as long as it meant contribution to their greater cause, let alone an impact as large as eliminating the Empress herself. She was just grouchy in a mood, and as much was understandable, seeing as her frightening creation hadn't even got to display the full intimidation that it packed before it was made completely useless.

"That's why," he pulled out a pink, bubbling vial from the pocket of his long overall, "we're coming prepared."

"Are you sure that thing would work? It's not like we haven't had potions that fail to work before." She asked again, uncertain. A ray of hope was hinted in her voice, and he recognized it instantly, having worked with her for so long. She was genuinely interested.

"This time, it'll work." He said with such certainty that it left no room for doubt, despite him not having offered any actual solid proof.

"Care to elaborate?"

"Well, she'd always been careful, and that is how she always comes out on top. She always takes the extra effort to conceal her tricks, but today she lacked the normal finesse."

"You mean the displaced rocks under her feet?" They were both obseving the crystal ball for any weird occurences. The crow did its job well, and they got a pretty good view of the whole disappearance act, including the small tussled gravel underneath her feet right after they vanished. "I thought the possibility for teleportation is ruled out entirely? I personally rigged the place, after all, and we all know my charms never fail. Not even with the Empress."

It was quite a while back, that incident. After Kate brewed up the most potent batch of trespassing repellent, they spread it around the battlefield to lure the Burian army into a surrounded clearing, with their archers waiting up higher vantage points around, weaponry at the ready. They got the Empress cornered along with the majority of her troops, and as usual she used her trick to get out of the delicately-set trap unscathed, or at least she had attempted to. No matter what she tried, she couldn't get out of the shooting range quick enough, and one of their archer managed to graze her shoulder before the whole army dissipated into thin air, as usual. It was the closest they'd ever come to actually hurting the Empress, who always seemed to be ten steps ahead of them, always prepared for any trap they could spring. It was also the first time they got to witness genuine distress on her face – Warren doubted she even had one until then – and to be honest, in that moment, she seemed no more human than they themselves were. Though the important fact was that their craft actually _worked_ on her, and that was what mattered the most.

"You're right, she can't have teleported, simply because she didn't. She got out another way." Warren declared, his eyes bright, an indication he's come to a revelation he deemed important. "Just bear with me for a moment here, but I got a theory. She moved, obviously so as the shift of the gravel path had certainly told so, but without us seeing her actually moving at all, just vanishing into thin air. How is that possible?"

"She moved too quick we can't see?" Kate suggested, feeling ridiculous with herself. The Empress was many things, but not a lightbringer, and even the most nimble of them couldn't move much quicker than the speed of light itself.

"Perhaps, but time, like space itself, is respective, and depends largely on our perspective. What if, she didn't move faster, but our optical relay got slower? What if, somehow, she slowed us down enough that we couldn't make out the image of her moving?" Warren spoke, the way he said it make it sound more like a tested theory than the unfounded hypothesis that it was.

"You mean, some sort of sensation manipulation? As long as a person is concerned, I do recall there is a potion to numb their senses, but I can't imagine how she can apply it to us while we're such a far distance away. Unless she's _that_ powerful, and if she really is, then I don't think Egor, along with the Resistance, is likely to still be standing like it is now." Kate shuddered at her own suggestion. It wasn't hard to imagine, with the Empress being practically invulnerable already and all. The more she gave thought to it, the more plausible it became to her, the idea that the Empress was actually a greater power descended from above them all, and that all the struggle up until that point was just their futile attempt against a force much greater than themselves, that the chance of victory – however slim it was – was all just an illusion no less from the beginning.

"No, I'm not saying she numbed our senses. I'm saying she numbed _us_, or, more properly, our time perception. I'm suggesting she might've tampered with temporal zones, altering it in a way that benefitted her, and incapacitated us." He spoke his conclusion in a grim, gravely tone, almost akin to the way someone would read out loud the orbituary section of the daily news.

Which made all the much more sense, because, really, if the Empress is capable of time manipulation, what excuse of chance do they still stand against her?

"Let's just hope your new concoction, whatever that is, will work this time. Otherwise, you know what will become of you and me." Kate stood up, bringing out her wand and fixing him with a stern gaze.

"You and I both." Warren replied, hovering his hand over his pocket to feel the bump of the small vial over his coat eventhough he knew it was there, nervousness apparent on his features. With a grandiose gesture, he summoned his staff out of thin air with his other hand, and together they murmured an incantation.

A distinctive "vop" was heard as the air rushed in to occupy the area where they had been standing a second earlier.

* * *

Without the reassuring clack of the wooden wheels on their wagon rolling on hard gravel, their journey through the jungle was more troublesome, mostly because they lacked of any sense of direction within Namaria's thousand-arc wide natural forest. Even if they were travelling in circles, they wouldn't be able to tell, not because the scenery was too much similar, but simply because they wouldn't know which direction to head at, either.

When they'd left the monster behind and started trekking through the woods again, the sun was well above their heads, tilting a bit to the East – or at least she hoped so, because there was no telling if the celestial bodies of Namaria moved anything like the ones back in Arcadia did. At the very least, she could tell it was setting in a different direction from where it had arisen, as the elongated elbows and calfs of their shadows were stretched at least twice the length of her whole height on the ground before her. Which also meant it was near dark, and they still had yet managed to find a place to camp that night.

Sleeping on wet, damp earth, though how uncomfortable that may be, seemed to be the only viable option, unless they somehow find sleeping bags in the middle of nowhere. The best they could go for in the circumstances was somewhere dry, warm, and wasn't manifested with hordes of insects or venomous reptiles, or bloodthirsty feral animals. Preferably without the occasional Resistance scouts roaming about the area as well.

Finally, when it was entirely dark, the sun well below the horizon and its last slithering rays obscured completely by thick, dense branches, they decided to call it a night and settle for the first spot that didn't smell of dead animals or decaying corpse, which was a small cave beneath a ledge, protruding out of the mountain slope. It wasn't ideal, but it could at least provide them some protection from the night's frost.

Having a master assassin as a lost-in-the-jungle companion turned out to be quite useful, especially when she got a fire up and burning with nothing but a few dry twigs and some leaves, along with a sharp splinter of flint. Honestly, Max wouldn't know what to do without the girl.

Sitting by the fire, its warmth licking up her skin and melting away the frost, its cackling sound gentle to the ear and the peaceful night – to her oblivion, at least – drawing on, with exhaustion of the last few days gripping at her bone, she almost succumbed to sleep, before farely managing to snap her eyelids open before they could seal themselves together. Chloe, observant as she was, saw that futile effort instantly, and offered to take the look-out shift for the night so that she could get some rest.

Under normal circumstances, she would never have agreed to it. But staying awake meant more awkward silences, more idiotic impulses to blurt out even more idiotic things, and more time to silently contemplate and reflect upon the events of the past few days. Which also meant more time to waddle in self-guilt and let it drown her deeper.

So ultimately she chose the wiser option and took Chloe up on her offer. Laying on her side, she let her eyelids flutter closed, and almost instantly she slept like a dead woman.

But if she thought she could escape the mental trauma of it all by scurrying deep into her sub-consciousness, she was so very wrong. Bad dreams, nightmares and all other sort of haunting images appeared vivid at the forefront of her mind, leaving her little rest throughout the whole night, even though her physical body barely tossed and turned anymore than absolutely necessary to prevent any of her limbs from going asleep – a direct result of the fatigue biting deep at her core, she assumed. In the end, she woke up when the sun was still a long way underneath the horizon, to a dozing off Chloe, sitting cross-legged with her elbows propped on her knees, hands propping her face upright and facing at the fire – already gone out since long from lack of sustenance, if the cold filling up the cave was any indication. Somehow, the girl was tired to a point where her deadly-assassin senses were numbed enough for her not to hear the small sound Max had made as she pushed herself to a standing position.

Creeping up behind her and moving as lightly as she could so she wouldn't arouse the girl from her slumber, partly because she wanted Chloe to have some rest, though mostly because she was afraid the girl would turn around and stab her in reflex as an assassin's natural response to anything creeping behind their back, Max settled the thin makeshift blanket – a bunch of leaves, really – across the girl's shoulders, who gave a content grunt and tugged it on tighter without opening her eyes. She was on the point of re-igniting the kindle of the flame too, when movement registered out of the corner of her eyes, accompanied by a sound.

How she was able to hear it so clear she had no idea, but something told her it was not of natural origin, but more likely magical. A "vop", to be precise.

The power once again nagged at the back of her mind, and this time she knew better than to ignore her gut feeling telling her that something was wrong. Something so so, very, horrendously wrong.

Chloe snapping awake and to attention at the sound – despite being sound asleep a just moment earlier – was evident enough that it meant nothing other than trouble.

And it was headed their way.


End file.
